MYSTICS 


iENAISSANCt 


aMIDOI-F  steiner 


(*   DEC  12 1911   * 


•jn."t 


BV  5075  .S83  1911 
Steiner,  Rudolf,  1861-1925 
Mystics  of  the  renaissance 
and  their  relation  to 


MYSTICS   OF  THE 
RENAISSANCE 

AND 

THEIR  RELATION  TO  MODERN  THOUGHT 

INCLUDING 

MEISTER  ECKHART,  TAULER,  PARACELSUS, 

JACOB  BOEHME,  GIORDANO  BRUNO, 

AND  OTHERS 


BY 


RUDOLF  STEINER 

Ph.D.  (Vienna) 


t^X  OF  Ff\lxcc 
*      DEC  12 1911      * 


'isiski  list:^ 


AUTHORISED  TRANSLATION    FROM   THE    GERMAN   BY 

BERTRAM  KEIGHTLEY,  M.A.   (Cantab.) 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S    SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

^be  Iknfcftcrbocftcr  press 

1911 


Copyright,  igii 

BY 

MAX  GYSI 


MAX  GYSI,  Editor, 

'  Adyar,"    Park   Drive, 

London,   N.   W. 


Ube  ftnlcberbocfier  press,  Tlevp  ^ovk 


CONTENTS 


Foreword    .... 

Introduction 

Meister  Eckhart 

Friendship    with    God    [Tauler, 

AND   RuYSBROECK]    . 

Cardinal  Nicholas  of  Cusa 

Agrippa    von    Nettesheim   and 
PHRASTUs  Paracelsus     . 


Suso 


Theo- 


Afterword 


PAGE 

V 


52 

81 
133 

182 


Valentine  Weigel  and  Jacob  Boehme     223 
Giordano  Bruno  and  Angelus  Silesius    246 


.     269 


Ill 


FOREWORD 

The  matter  which  I  am  laying  before 
the  public  in  this  book  formed  the 
content  of  lectures  which  I  delivered 
during  last  winter  at  the  Theosophical 
Library  in  Berlin.  I  had  been  requested 
by  Grafin  and  Graf  Brockdorff  to  speak 
upon  Mysticism  before  an  audience  for 
whom  the  matters  thus  dealt  with  con- 
stitute a  vital  question  of  the  utmost 
importance.  Ten  years  earlier  I  could 
not  have  ventured  to  fulfil  such  a  re- 
quest. Not  that  the  realm  of  ideas,  to 
which  I  now  give  expression,  did  not 
even  then  live  actively  within  me.  For 
these  ideas  are  already  fully  contained 
in  my  Philosophy  of  Freedom  (Berlin, 
1894.     Emil   Felber).     But   to   give   ex- 


vi  FOREWORD 

pression  to  this  world  of  ideas  in  such 
wise  as  I  do  to-day,  and  to  make  it  the 
basis  of  an  exposition  as  is  done  on  the 
following  pages — to  do  this  requires 
something  quite  other  than  merely  to 
be  immovably  convinced  of  the  intel- 
lectual truth  of  these  ideas.  It  demands 
an  intimate  acquaintance  with  this  realm 
of  ideas,  such  as  only  many  years  of  life 
can  give.  Only  now,  after  having  en- 
joyed that  intimacy,  do  I  venture  to 
speak  in  such  wise  as  will  be  found  in 
this  book. 

Any  one  who  does  not  approach  my 
world  of  ideas  without  preconceptions 
is  sure  to  discover  therein  contradiction 
after  contradiction.  I  have  quite  re- 
cently (Berlin,  1900.  S.  Cronbach)  dedi- 
cated a  book  upon  the  world  conceptions 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  that  great 
naturalist,  Ernst  Haeckel,  and  closed  it 


FOREWORD  vii 

with  a  defence  of  his  thought- world. 
In  the  following  expositions,  I  speak 
about  the  Mystics,  from  Master  Eckhart 
to  Angelus  Silesius,  with  a  full  measure  of 
devotion  and  acquiescence.  Other  "con- 
tradictions," which  one  critic  or  another 
may  further  count  up  against  me,  I  shall 
not  mention  at  all.  It  does  not  surprise 
me  to  be  condemned  from  one  side  as  a 
"Mystic"  and  from  the  other  as  a 
"Materialist."  When  I  find  that  the 
Jesuit  Father  Miiller  has  solved  a  diffi- 
cult chemical  problem,  and  I  therefore  in 
this  particular  matter  agree  with  him 
unreservedly,  one  can  hardly  condemn 
me  as  an  adherent  of  Jesuitism  without 
being  reckoned  a  fool  by  those  who  have 
insight. 

Whoever  goes  his  own  road,  as  I  do, 
must  needs  allow  many  a  misunder- 
standing about  himself  to  pass.     That, 


viii  FOREWORD 

however,  he  can  put  up  with  easily 
enough.  For  such  misunderstandings 
are,  in  the  main,  inevitable  in  his  eyes, 
when  he  recalls  the  mental  type  of  those 
who  misjudge  him.  I  look  back,  not 
without  htmiorous  feelings,  upon  many 
a  ''critical"  judgment  that  I  have  suf- 
fered in  the  course  of  my  literary  career. 
At  the  outset,  matters  went  fairly  well. 
I  wrote  about  Goethe  and  his  philosophy. 
What  I  said  there  appeared  to  many  to  be 
of  such  a  nature  that  they  could  file  it 
in  their  mental  pigeon-holes.  This  they 
did  by  saying:  ''A  work  such  as  Rudolf 
Steiner's  Introduction  to  Goethe  s  Writings 
upon  Natural  Science  may,  without  hesi- 
tation, be  described  as  the  best  that  has 
been  written  upon  this  question." 

When,  later,  I  published  an  inde- 
pendent work,  I  had  already  grown  a 
good  bit  more  stupid.     For  now  a  well 


FOREWORD  ix 

meaning  critic  offered  the  advice:  "Before 
he  goes  on  reforming  further  and  gives 
his  Philosophy  of  Freedom  to  the  world, 
he  should  be  pressingly  advised  first  to 
work  himself  through  to  an  understanding 
of  these  two  philosophers  [Htmie  and 
Kant] . "  The  critic  imf ortunately  knows 
only  so  much  as  he  is  himself  able  to  read 
in  Kant  and  Hume;  practically,  there- 
fore, he  simply  advises  me  to  learn  to  see 
no  more  in  these  thinkers  than  he  him- 
self sees.  When  I  have  attained  that,  he 
will  be  satisfied  with  me.  Then  when 
my  Philosophy  and  Freedom  appeared,  I 
was  found  to  be  as  much  in  need  of  cor- 
rection as  the  most  ignorant  beginner. 
This  I  received  from  a  gentleman  who 
probably  nothing  else  impelled  to  the 
writing  of  books  except  that  he  had  not 
understood  innimierable  foreign  ones. 
He  gravely  informs  me  that  I  should  have 


X  FOREWORD 

noticed  my  mistakes  if  I  had  *'made 
more  thorough  studies  in  psychology, 
logic,  and  the  theory  of  knowledge"; 
and  he  enumerates  forthwith  the  books 
I  ought  to  read  to  become  as  wise  as 
himself:  "Mill,  Sigwart,  Wundt,  Riehl, 
Paulsen,  B.  Erdmann."  What  amused 
me  especially  was  this  advice  from  a 
man  who  was  so  "impressed"  with  the 
way  he  "understood"  Kant  that  he 
could  not  even  imagine  how  any  man 
could  have  read  Kant  and  yet  judge 
otherwise  than  himself.  He  therefore 
indicates  to  me  the  exact  chapters  in 
question  in  Kant's  writings  from  which 
I  may  be  able  to  obtain  an  understanding 
of  Kant  as  deep  and  as  thorough  as 
his  own. 

I  have  cited  here  a  couple  of  typical 
criticisms  of  my  world  of  ideas.  Though 
in    themselves    unimportant,    yet    they 


FOREWORD  XI 

seem  to  me  to  point,  as  symptoms,  to 
facts  which  present  themselves  to-day 
as  serious  obstacles  in  the  path  of  any 
one  aiming  at  literary  activity  in  regard 
to  the  higher  problems  of  knowledge. 
Thus  I  must  go  on  my  way,  indifferent, 
whether  one  man  gives  me  the  good  ad- 
vice to  read  Kant,  or  another  hunts  me 
as  a  heretic  because  I  agree  with  Haeckel. 
And  so  I  have  also  written  upon  Mysti- 
cism, wholly  indifferent  as  to  how  a  faith- 
ful and  believing  materialist  may  judge 
of  me.  I  would  only  like — so  that  prin- 
ters' ink  may  not  be  wasted  wholly  with- 
out need — to  inform  any  one  who  may, 
perchance  advise  me  to  read  Haeckel's 
Riddle  of  the  Universe,  that  during  the 
last  few  months  I  have  delivered  about 
thirty  lectures  upon  the  said  work. 

I  hope    to  have  shown   in  this  book 
that  one  may  be  a  faithful  adherent  of 


xii  FOREWORD 

the  scientific  conception  of  the  world 
and  yet  be  able  to  seek  out  those  paths 
to  the  Soul  along  which  Mysticism, 
rightly  understood,  leads.  I  even  go 
further  and  say:  Only  he  who  knows  the 
Spirit,  in  the  sense  of  true  Mysticism,  can 
attain  a  full  understanding  of  the  facts 
of  Nature.  But  one  must  not  confuse 
true  Mysticism  with  the  ''pseudo-mys- 
ticism" of  ill-ordered  minds.  How  Mys- 
ticism can  err,  I  have  shown  in  my 
Philosophy  of  Freedom  (page  131  et 
seq.). 

Rudolf  Steiner. 

Berlin,  September,  1901. 


MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 


Mystics  of  the  Renaissance 


INTRODUCTION 

There  are  certain  magical  formulae 
which  operate  throughout  the  centuries 
of  Man's  mental  history  in  ever  new 
ways.  In  Greece  one  such  formula 
was  regarded  as  an  oracle  of  Apollo.  It 
runs:  "Know  Thyself.*'  Such  sentences 
seem  to  conceal  within  them  an  unend- 
ing life.  One  comes  upon  them  when  fol- 
lowing the  most  diverse  roads  in  mental 
life.  The  further  one  advances,  the  more 
one  penetrates  into  the  knowledge  of 
things,  the  deeper  appears  the  significance 
of  these  formulae.  In  many  a  moment 
of  our  brooding  and  thinking,  they  flash 


2      MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

out  like  lightning,  illuminating  our  whole 
inner  being.  In  such  moments  there 
quickens  within  us  a  feeling  as  if  we 
heard  the  heart-beat  of  the  evolution  of 
mankind.  How  close  do  we  not  feel 
ourselves  to  personalities  of  the  past, 
when  the  feeling  comes  over  us,  through 
one  of  their  winged  words,  that  they  are 
revealing  to  us  that  they,  too,  had  had 
such  moments! 

We  feel  ourselves  then  brought  into 
intimate  touch  with  these  personalities. 
For  instance,  we  learn  to  know  Hegel 
intimately  when,  in  the  third  volume 
of  his  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of 
History  we  come  across  the  words: 
"Such  stuff,  one  may  say,  the  abstrac- 
tions that  we  contemplate  when  we 
allovvT  the  philosophers  to  quarrel  and 
battle  in  our  study,  and  make  it  out  to 
be  thus  or  so^ — mere  verbal  abstractions ! 


INTRODUCTION  3 

No!  No!  These  are  deeds  of  the  world- 
spirit  and  therefore  of  destiny.     Therein 
the  Philosophers  are  nearer  to  the  Master 
than  are  those  who  feed  themselves  with 
the  crumbs  of  the  spirit;  they  read  or 
write  the  Cabinet  Orders  in  the  original 
at  once;  they  are  constrained  to  write 
them  out  along  with  Him.     The  Philoso- 
phers are  the  Mystae  who,  at  the  crisis 
in  the  inmost  shrine,  were  there  and  took 
part."     When  Hegel  said  this,  he  had 
experienced  one  of  those  moments  just 
spoken  of.     He  uttered  the  phrases  when, 
in  the  course  of  his  remarks,   he  had 
reached  the  close  of  Greek  philosophy; 
and  through  them  he  showed  that  once, 
like  a  gleam  of  lightning,  the  meaning 
of  the  Neoplatonic  philosophy,  of  which 
he  was  just  treating,  had  flashed  upon 
him.     In  the  instant  of  this  flash,  he  had 
become  intimate  with  minds  like  Plotinus 


4     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  Proklus;  and  we  become  intimate 
with  him  when  we  read  his  words. 

We  become  intimate,  too,  with  that 
solitary  thinker,  the  Pastor  of  Zschopau, 
M.  Valentin  Weigel,  when  we  read  the 
opening  words  of  his  little  book  Know 
Thyself,  written  in  1578:  "We  read  in  the 
wise  men  of  old  the  useful  saying,  'Know 
Thyself,*  which,  though  it  be  right  well 
used  about  worldly  manners,  as  thus: 
*  regard  well  thyself,  what  thou  art,  seek 
in  thine  own  bosom,  judge  thyself  and 
lay  no  blame  on  others,'  a  saying,  I 
repeat,  which,  though  thus  used  of  human 
life  and  manners,  may  well  and  appro- 
priately be  applied  by  us  to  the  natural 
and  supernatural  knowing  of  the  whole 
man;  so  indeed,  that  man  shall  not  only 
consider  himself  and  thereby  remember 
how  he  should  bear  himself  before  people, 
but  that  he   shall  also  know  his  own 


INTRODUCTION  5 

nature,  inner  and  outer,  in  spirit  and  in 
Nature;  whence  he  cometh  and  whereof 
he  is  made,  to  what  end  he  is  ordained.'* 
So,  from  points  of  view  pecuHar  to  him- 
self, Valentin  Weigel  attained  to  insight 
which  in  his  mind  summed  itself  up  in 
this  oracle  of  Apollo. 

A  similar  path  to  insight  and  a  like  re- 
lation to  the  saying  ''Know Thyself*'  may 
be  ascribed  to  a  series  of  deep-natured 
thinkers,  beginning  with  Master  Eckhart 
( 1 250-1 327),  and  ending  with  Angelus 
Silesius  (i  624-1 677),  among  whom  may 
be  found  also  Valentin  Weigel  himself. 

All  these  thinkers  have  in  common  a 
strong  sense  of  the  fact  that  in  man's 
knowing  of  himself  there  rises  a  sun 
which  illuminates  something  very  differ- 
ent from  the  mere  accidental,  separated 
personality  of  the  beholder.  What  Spi- 
noza became  conscious  of  in  the  ethereal 


6      MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

heights  of  pure  thought, — viz.,  that  ''the 
human  soul  possesses  an  adequate  know- 
ledge of  the  Eternal  and  Infinite  Being 
of  God," — that  same  consciousness  lived 
in  them  as  immediate  feeling;  and  self- 
knowledge  was  to  them  the  path  leading 
to  this  Eternal  and  Infinite  Being.  It 
was  clear  to  them  that  self-knowledge  in 
its  true  form  enriched  man  with  a  new 
sense,  which  unlocked  for  him  a  world 
standing  in  relation  to  the  world  acces- 
sible to  him  without  this  new  sense  as 
does  the  world  of  one  possessing  physical 
sight  to  that  of  a  blind  man. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better 
description  of  the  import  of  this  new  sense 
than  the  one  given  by  J.  G.  Fichte  in  his 
Berlin  Lectures  (1813): 

''Imagine  a  world  of  men  born  blind, 
to  whom  all  objects  and  their  relations 
are  known   only   through   the   sense    of 


INTRODUCTION  .  7 

touch.  Go  amongst  them  and  speak  to 
them  of  colours  and  other  relations, 
which  are  rendered  visible  only  through 
light.  Either  you  are  talking  to  them 
of  nothing, — and  if  they  say  this,  it  is 
the  luckier,  for  thus  you  will  soon  see 
your  mistake,  and,  if  you  cannot  open 
their  eyes,  cease  your  useless  talking,^ — • 
or,  for  some  reason  or  other,  they  will 
insist  upon  giving  some  meaning  or  other 
to  what  you  say;  then  they  can  only 
interpret  it  in  relation  to  what  they 
know  by  touch.  They  will  seek  to 
feel,  they  will  imagine  they  do  feel 
light  and  colour,  and  the  other  inci- 
dents of  visibility,  they  will  invent 
something  for  themselves,  deceive  them- 
selves with  something  within  the  world 
of  touch,  which  they  will  call  colour. 
Then  they  will  misunderstand,  distort, 
and  misinterpret  it." 


8      MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  same  thing  appHes  to  what  the 
thinkers  we  are  speaking  of  sought  after. 
They  beheld  a  new  sense  opening  in  self- 
knowledge,  and  this  sense  yielded,  ac- 
cording to  their  experiences,  views  of 
things  which  are  simply  non-existent 
for  one  who  does  not  see  in  self-knowledge 
what  distinguishes  it  from  all  other  kinds 
of  knowing.  One  in  whom  this  new  sense 
has  not  been  opened,  believes  that  self- 
knowing,  or  self -perception,  is  the  same 
thing  as  perception  through  the  outer 
senses,  or  through  any  other  means 
acting  from  without.  He  thinks : ' '  Know- 
ing is  knowing,  perceiving  is  perceiving." 
Only  in  the  one  case  the  object  is  some- 
thing lying  in  the  world  outside,  in  the 
other  this  object  is  his  own  soul.  He 
finds  words  merely,  or  at  best,  abstract 
thoughts,  in  that  which  for  those  who  see 
more  deeply  is  the  very  foundation  of 


INTRODUCTION  9 

their  inner  life;    namely,  in  the  propo- 
sition:   that    in    every    other    kind    of 
knowing  or  perception  we  have  the  ob- 
ject perceived  outside  of  ourselves,  while 
in  self-knowledge  or   self-perception  we 
stand  within  that  object;  that  we  see 
every  other  object  coming  to  us  already 
complete  and  finished  off,  while  in  our- 
selves we,  as  actors  and  creators,  are  weav- 
ing that  which  we   observe  within  us. 
This  may  appear  to  be  nothing  but  a 
merely  verbal  explanation,  perhaps  even 
a  triviality;  it  may  appear,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  a  higher  light  which  illuminates 
every  other  cognition.     One  to  whom  it 
appears  in  the  first  way,  is  in  the  po- 
sition of  a  blind  man,  to  whom  one  says: 
there  is  a  gHttering  object.     He  hears  the 
words,  but  for  him  the  glitter  is  not  there. 
He  might  unite  in  himself  the  whole  sum 
of    knowledge    of    his    time;    but    if   he 


10    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

does  not  feel  and  realise  the  significance 
of  self-knowledge,  then  it  is  all,  in  the 
higher  sense,  a  blind  knowledge. 

The  world,  outside  of  and  independent 
of  us,  exists  for  us  by  communicating 
itself  to  our  consciousness.  What  is  thus 
made  known  must  needs  be  expressed  in 
the  language  peculiar  to  ourselves.  A 
book,  the  contents  of  which  were  offered 
in  a  language  unknown  to  us,  would  for 
us  be  without  meaning.  Similarly,  the 
world  would  be  meaningless  for  us  did 
it  not  speak  to  us  in  our  own  tongue ;  and 
the  same  language  which  reaches  us 
from  things,  we  also  hear  from  within 
ourselves.  But  in  that  case,  it  is  we  our- 
selves who  speak.  The  really  important 
point  is  that  we  should  correctly  appre- 
hend the  transposition  which  occurs  when 
we  close  our  perception  against  external 
things  and  listen  only  to  that  wnich  then 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

speaks  from  within.  But  to  do  this 
needs  this  new  sense.  If  it  has  not  been 
awakened,  we  beHeve  that  in  what  is 
thus  told  us  about  ourselves  we  are  hear- 
ing only  about  something  external  to  us ; 
we  fancy  that  somewhere  there  is  hidden 
something  which  is  speaking  to  us  in  the 
same  way  as  external  things  speak.  But 
if  we  possess  this  new  sense,  then  we 
know  that  these  perceptions  differ  essen- 
tially from  those  relating  to  external 
things.  Then  we  realise  that  this  new 
sense  does  not  leave  what  it  perceives 
outside  of  itself,  as  the  eye  leaves  the 
object  it  sees;  but  that  it  can  take  up 
its  object  wholly  into  itself,  leaving  no 
remainder.  If  I  see  a  thing,  that  thing 
remains  outside  of  me;  if  I  perceive  my- 
self, then  I  myself  enter  into  my  per- 
ception. Whoever  seeks  for  something 
more  of  himself  than  what  is  perceived, 


12    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

shows  thereby  that  for  him  the  real  con- 
tent in  the  perception  has  not  come  to 
Hght.  Johannes  Tauler  (i 300-1361),  has 
expressed  this  truth  in  the  apt  words: 
"If  I  were  a  king  and  knew  it  not,  then 
should  I  be  no  king.  If  I  do  not  shine 
forth  for  myself  in  my  own  self -percep- 
tion, then  for  myself  I  do  not  exist.  But 
if  for  myself  I  do  shine  out,  then  I  pos- 
sess myself  also  in  my  perception,  in  my 
own  most  deeply  original  being.  There 
remains  no  residue  of  myself  left  outside 
of  my  perception.'* 

J.  G.  Fichte,  in  the  following  words, 
vigorously  points  to  the  difference  be- 
tween self -percept  ion  and  every  other 
kind  of  perception:  ''The  majority  of 
men  could  be  more  easily  brought  to  be- 
lieve themselves  a  lump  of  lava  in  the 
moon  than  an  'ego.'  Whoever  is  not 
at  one  with  himself  as  to  this,  under- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

stands  no  thorough-going  philosophy  and 
has  need  of  none.  Nature,  whose  ma- 
chine he  is,  will  guide  him  in  all  the 
things  he  has  to  do  without  any  sort  of 
added  help  from  him.  For  philosophising, 
self-reliance  is  needed,  and  this  one  can 
only  give  to  oneself.  We  ought  not  to 
want  to  see  without  the  eye;  but  also  we 
ought  not  to  maintain  that  it  is  the  eye 
which  sees." 

Thus  the  perception  of  oneself  is  also 
the  awakening  of  oneself.  In  our  cog- 
nition we  combine  the  being  of  things 
with  our  own  being.  The  communi- 
cations, which  things  make  to  us  in  our 
own  language,  become  members  of  our 
own  selves.  An  object  in  front  of  me 
is  not  separated  from  me,  once  I  have 
known  it.  What  I  am  able  to  receive 
from  it  becomes  part  and  parcel  of  my 
own  being.     If-,  now,  I  awaken  my  own 


14    AIYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

self,  if  I  become  aware  of  the  content  of 
my  own  inner  being,  then  I  also  awaken 
to  a  higher  mode  of  being,  that  which 
from  without  I  have  made  part  of  my 
own  being.  The  light  that  falls  upon 
me  at  my  awakening  falls  also  upon 
whatever  I  have  made  my  own  from  the 
things  of  the  outside  world.  A  light 
springs  up  within  me  and  iiltmiines  me, 
and  with  me  all  that  I  have  cognised  of 
the  world.  Whatever  I  might  know  would 
remain  blind  knowledge,  did  not  this 
light  fall  upon  it.  I  might  search  the 
world  through  and  through  with  my 
perception;  still  the  world  would  not  be 
that  which  in  me  it  must  become,  unless 
that  perception  were  awakened  in  me  to 
a  higher  mode  of  being. 

That  which  I  add  to  things  through 
this  awakening  is  not  a  new  idea,  is  not 
an    enrichment    of    the    content    of   my 


INTRODUCTION  15 

knowing;  it  is  an  uplifting  of  the  know- 
ledge, of  the  cognition,  to  a  higher  level, 
where  everything  is  suffused  with  a  new 
glory.     So  long  as  I  do  not  raise  my  con- 
sciousness to  this  level,  all  knowledge  con- 
tinues to  be  for  me,  in  the  higher  sense, 
valueless.     The  things  are  there  without 
my   presence.     They   have   their   being 
in  themselves.     What  possible  meaning 
could  there  be  in  my  linking  with  their 
being,  which  they  have  outside  and  apart 
from  me,  another  spiritual  existence  in 
addition,  which  repeats  the  things  over 
again  within  me?  If  only  a  mere  repeti- 
tion of  things  were  involved,  it  would  be 
senseless  to  carry  it  out.     But,  really,  a 
mere  repetition  is  only  involved  so  long  as 
I  have  not  awakened,  along  with  my  own 
self,  the  mental  content  of  these  things 
upon  a  higher  level.     When  this  occurs, 
then  I  have  not  merely  repeated  within 


i6    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

myself  the  being  of  things,  but  I  have 
brought  it  to  a  new  birth  on  a  higher 
level.  With  the  awakening  of  my  self, 
there  is  accomplished  a  spiritual  re-birth 
of  the  things  of  the  world. 

What  the  things  reveal  in  this  re-birth 
did  not  previously  belong  to  them.  There, 
without,  stands  the  tree.  I  take  it  up  in- 
to my  consciousness.  I  throw  my  inner 
light  upon  that  which  I  have  thus  con- 
ceived. The  tree  becomes  in  me  more 
than  it  is  outside.  That  in  it  which  finds 
entrance  through  the  gate  of  the  senses  is 
taken  up  into  a  conscious  content.  An 
ideal  replica  of  the  tree  is  within  me,  and 
that  has  infinitely  more  to  say  about  the 
tree  than  what  the  tree  itself,  outside,  can 
tell  me.  Then,  for  the  first  time  there 
shines  out  from  within  me,  towards  the 
tree,  what  the  tree  is.  The  tree  is  now 
no  longer  the  isolated  being  that  it  is  out 


INTRODUCTION  17 

there  in  space.  It  becomes  a  link  in 
the  entire  conscious  world  that  lives  in 
me.  It  links  its  content  with  other  ideas 
that  are  in  me.  It  becomes  a  member  of 
the  whole  world  of  ideas  that  embraces 
the  vegetable  kingdom;  it  takes  its 
place,  fiirther,  in  the  series  of  all  that 
lives. 

Another  example:  I  throw  a  stone 
in  a  horizontal  direction  away  from  me. 
It  moves  in  a  curved  line  and  after  some 
time  falls  to  the  ground.  I  see  it  in 
successive  moments  of  time  in  different 
places.  Through  observation  and  re- 
flection I  acquire  the  following:  During 
its  motion  the  stone  is  subject  to  different 
influences.  If  it  were  subject  only  to 
the  influence  of  the  impulse  which  I  im- 
parted to  it,  it  would  go  on  flying  for 
ever  in  a  straight  line,  without  altering 
its  velocity.   But  now  the  earth  exerts  an 


i8    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

influence  upon  it.  It  attracts  the  stone 
towards  itself.  If,  instead  of  throw- 
ing the  stone,  I  had  simply  let  it  go,  it 
would  have  fallen  vertically  to  earth; 
and  its  velocity  in  doing  so  would  have 
constantly  increased.  From  the  mutual 
interaction  of  these  two  influences  arises 
that  which  I  actually  see. 

Let  us  assume  that  I  could  not  in 
thought  separate  the  two  influences,  and 
from  this  orderly  combination  put  to- 
gether again  in  thought  what  I  see:  in 
that  case,  the  matter  would  end  with  the 
actual  happening.  It  would  be  mentally 
a  blind  staring  at  what  happened;  a  per- 
ception of  the  successive  positions  which 
the  stone  occupies.  But  in  actual  fact, 
matters  do  not  stop  there.  The  whole 
occurrence  takes  place  twice.  Once  out- 
side, and  then  my  eye  sees  it;  then  my 
mind    causes    the    whole   happening   to 


INTRODUCTION  19 

repeat  itself  again,  in  a  mental  or  con- 
scious manner.  My  inner  sense  must  be 
directed  upon  the  mental  occurrence, 
which  my  eye  does  not  see,  and  then  it 
becomes  clear  to  that  sense  that  I,  by 
my  own  inner  power,  awaken  that  occur- 
rence as  a  mental  one. 

Again,  another  sentence  of  J.  G. 
Fichte's  may  be  quoted  which  brings 
this  fact  clearly  before  the  mind. 
''Thus  the  new  sense  is  the  sense  for 
the  spirit;  that  for  which  there  exists 
only  spirit  and  absolutely  nothing  else, 
and  for  which  also  the  'other,'  the  given 
being,  assumes  the  form  of  spirit  and 
transforms  itself  into  spirit,  for  which 
therefore  being  in  its  own  proper  form 
has  actually  disappeared.  .  .  .  There 
has  been  the  faculty  of  seeing  with 
this  sense  ever  since  men  have  existed, 
and  all  that  is  great  and  excellent  in  the 


20    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

world,  which  alone  upholds  humanity, 
originates  in  what  has  been  seen  by  means 
of  this  sense.  It  is,  however,  not  the 
case  that  this  sense  has  been  perceived 
or  known  in  its  difference  and  its  con- 
trast with  that  other,  ordinary  sense. 
The  impressions  of  the  two  senses  melted 
into  one  another,  life  fell  apart  into  these 
two  halves  without  a  bond  of  union." 
The  bond  of  imion  is  created  by  the 
fact  that  the  inner  sense  grasps  in  its 
spirituality  the  spiritual  element  which 
it  awakens  in  its  intercourse  with  the 
outer  world.  That  which  we  take  up 
into  our  consciousness  from  outside 
things  thereby  ceases  to  appear  as  a 
mere  meaningless  repetition.  It  appears 
as  something  new  over  against  that  which 
only  external  perception  can  give.  The 
simple  occurrence  of  throwing  the  stone, 
and  my  perception  thereof,  appear  in  a 


INTRODUCTION  si 

higher  light  when  I  make  clear  to  myself 
the  kind  of  task  which  my  inner  sense 
has  to  perform  in  regard  to  the  whole 
thing.  In  order  to  fit  together  in  thought 
the  two  influences  and  their  modes  of 
action,  an  amount  of  mental  content  is 
needed  which  I  must  already  have  ac- 
quired when  I  cognise  the  flying  stone. 
I  therefore  apply  a  spiritual  content 
already  stored  up  within  me  to  something 
that  confronts  me  in  the  external  world. 
And  this  occurrence  in  the  external 
world  fits  itself  into  the  spiritual  content 
already  present.  It  reveals  itself  in  its 
own  special  individuality  as  an  expres- 
sion of  this  content. 

Through  the  understanding  of  my 
inner  sense,  there  is  thus  disclosed  to 
me  the  nature  of  the  relation  that 
obtains  between  the  content  of  this 
sense    and    the    things    of   the    external 


22    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

world.  Fichte  would  say  that  without 
the  understanding  of  this  sense,  the 
world  falls  apart  for  me  into  two  halves: 
into  things  outside  of  me,  and  into  pic- 
tures of  these  things  within  me.  The 
two  halves  become  united  when  the 
inner  self  understands  itself  and  con- 
sequently recognises  clearly  what  sort  of 
illumination  it  throws  upon  things  in 
the  cognitive  process.  And  Fichte  could 
also  venture  to  say  that  this  inner  sense 
sees  only  Spirit.  For  it  perceives  how 
the  Spirit  enlightens  the  sense-world  by 
making  it  part  and  parcel  of  the  spiritual 
world.  The  inner  sense  causes  the  outer 
sense-world  to  arise  within  itself  as  a 
spiritual  being  on  a  higher  level.  An  ex- 
ternal object  is  completely  known  when 
there  is  no  part  of  it  which  has  not  thus 
undergone  a  spiritual  re-birth.  Thus 
every  external  object  fits   itself  into   a 


INTRODUCTION  23 

spiritual  content,  which,  when  it  has 
been  grasped  by  the  inner  sense,  shares 
the  destiny  of  self-knowledge.  The  spiri- 
tual content,  which  belongs  to  an  object 
through  its  illumination  from  within, 
merges  itself  wholly,  like  the  very  self, 
into  the  world  of  ideas,  leaving  no  re- 
mainder behind. 

These  developments  contain  nothing 
which  is  susceptible  or  even  in  need  of 
logical  proof.  They  are  nothing  but 
the  results  of  inner  experience.  Who- 
ever calls  into  question  this  content, 
shows  only  that  he  is  lacking  in  this 
inner  experience.  It  is  impossible  to 
dispute  with  him;  as  little  could  one 
discuss  colour  with  a  blind  man. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  contended 
that  this  inner  experience  is  made  pos- 
sible only  through  the  special  endowment 
of  a  few  chosen  people.     It  is  a  common 


24    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

property.  Every  one  can  enter  upon 
the  path  to  this  experience  who  does 
not  of  his  own  will  shut  himself  against 
it.  This  closing  up  of  oneself  against 
it,  is,  however,  common  enough.  And  in 
dealing  with  objections  raised  in  this  di- 
rection, one  always  has  the  feeling  that 
it  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  people 
being  unable  to  attain  this  inner  ex- 
perience, as  of  their  having  hopelessly 
blocked  the  entrance  to  it  with  all  kinds 
of  logical  spiders'  webs.  It  is  almost  as 
if  some  one  looking  through  a  telescope 
and  discovering  a  new  planet  should 
yet  deny  its  existence  because  his  calcu- 
lations have  shown  that  there  can  be  no 
planet  in  that  position. 

But  with  all  this  there  is  still  in  most 
people  the  clearly  marked  feeling  that 
all  that  really  lies  in  the  being  of  things 
cannot  be  completely  given  in  what  the 


INTRODUCTION  25 

outer  senses  and  the  analysing  under- 
standing can  cognise.  They  then  be- 
lieve that  the  remainder  so  left  over  must 
be  just  as  much  in  the  external  world  as 
are  the  things  of  our  perceptions  them- 
selves. They  think  that  there  must  be 
something  which  remains  unknown  to 
cognition.  What  they  ought  to  attain 
by  again  perceiving  with  the  inner  sense, 
on  a  higher  plane,  the  very  object  which 
they  have  already  cognised  and  grasped 
with  the  understanding, — this  they  trans- 
fer as  something  inaccessible  and  unknown 
into  the  external  world.  Then  they  talk 
of  the  limits  of  knowledge  which  prevent 
our  reaching  the  ''thing -in -itself."  They 
talk  of  the  unknown  "being"  of  things. 
That  this  very  ''being"  of  things  shines 
out  when  the  inner  sense  lets  its  light 
fall  upon  the  things,  is  what  they  will 
not    recognise.     The    famous    "Ignora- 


26    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

bimus"  speech  of  the  scientist,  Du  Bois- 
Reymond,  in  the  year    1876,    furnished 
a  particularly  blatant   example   of  this 
error.     We  are  supposed  to  be  able  to 
get  in  every  direction  only  so  far  as  to 
be  able  to  see  in  all  natural  processes 
the  manifestations  of   "matter."     What 
''matter"  itself  is,  we  are  supposed   to 
be  unable  to  know.     Du  Bois-Reymond 
contends  that  we  shall  never  succeed  in 
penetrating  to  wherever  it  is  that  "mat- 
ter" leads  its  ghostly  life  in  space.     The 
reason  why  we  cannot    get    there   lies, 
however,  in  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing 
whatsoever  to  be  looked  for  there.    Who- 
ever speaks  like  Du  Bois-Reymond  must 
have   a   feeling   that   the   knowledge   of 
Nature  yields  results  which  point  to  a 
something  further  and  other  which  Na- 
ture-knowledge itself  cannot  give.      But 
he  refuses  to  follow  the  road,— the  road 


INTRODUCTION  27 

of  inner  experience,  which  leads  to  this 
other.  Therefore  he  stands  at  a  com- 
plete loss  before  the  question  of  "mat- 
ter" as  before  a  dark  riddle.  In  him  who 
treads  the  path  of  inner  experience,  ob- 
jects attain  to  a  new  birth;  and  that  in 
them  which  remains  unknown  to  outer 
experience  then  shines  forth. 

In  such  wise  the  inner  being  of  man 
obtains  light  not  only  as  regards  itself 
but  also  as  regards  external  things.  From 
this  point  of  view  an  endless  per- 
spective opens  out  before  man's  know- 
ledge. Within  him  shines  a  light  whose 
illiunination  is  not  restricted  to  that 
which  is  within  him.  It  is  a  sun  which 
lights  up  all  reality  at  once.  Something 
makes  its  appearance  in  us  which  links 
us  with  the  whole  world.  No  longer  are 
we  simply  isolated,  chance  human  beings, 
no  longer  this  or  that  individual.     The 


28    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

entire  world  reveals  itself  in  us.  It  un- 
veils to  us  its  own  coherence;  and  it 
unveils  to  us  how  we  ourselves  as  in- 
dividuals are  bound  up  with  it.  From 
out  of  self-knowledge  is  born  knowledge 
of  the  world.  And  our  own  limited 
individuality  merges  itself  spiritually  into 
the  great  interconnected  world-whole, 
because  in  us  something  has  come  to 
life  that  reaches  out  beyond  this  in- 
dividuality, that  embraces  along  with 
it  everything  of  which  this  individuality 
forms  a  part. 

Thinking  which  does  not  block  up  its 
own  road  to  inner  experience  with  logical 
preconceptions  always  comes,  in  the 
long  run,  to  a  recognition  of  the  entity 
that  rules  in  us  and  connects  us  with  the 
entire  world,  because  through  this  entity 
we  overcome  the  opposition  of  ''inner" 
and   ''outer"   in  regard  to  man.     Paul 


INTRODUCTION  29 

Asmus,  the  keen-sighted  philosopher,  who 
died  young,  expressed  himself  as  follows 
about  this  position  {cp.  his  book  Das  Ich 
und  das  Ding  an  Sich,  p.  14  et  seq.): — 
''Let  us  make  it  clear  by  an  example: 
imagine  a  piece  of  sugar;  it  is  square, 
sweet,  impenetrable,  etc.,  etc.,  these  are 
one  and  all  qualities  which  we  under- 
stand;  one  thing,  however,  hovers   be- 
fore us  as  something  totally    different, 
that  we  do  not  understand,  that  is  so 
different  from  ourselves  that  we  cannot 
penetrate  into  it  without  losing  ourselves ; 
from  the  mere  surface  of  which  thought 
starts  back  afraid.     This  one  thing  is 
the  imknown  bearer  of  all  these  qualities ; 
the  thing-in-itself,  which  constitutes  the 
inmost  self  of  the  object.     Thus  Hegel 
rightly  says  that  the  entire  content  of 
our  perception  is  related  as  mere  acci- 
dent to  this  obscure  subject,  while  we, 


30    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

without  penetrating  into  its  depths, 
merely  attach  determinations  to  what 
it  is  in  itself, — which  ultimately,  since 
we  do  not  know  the  thing  itself,  remain 
merely  subjective  and  have  no  objective 
value.  Conceptual  thought,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  no  such  unknowable  subject, 
whose  determinations  might  be  mere 
accidents,  but  the  objective  subject  falls 
within  the  concept.  If  I  cognise  any- 
thing, then  it  is  present  in  its  entire 
fulness  in  my  conception;  I  am  at  home 
in  the  inmost  shrine  of  its  being,  not 
because  it  has  no  proper  being-in-itself 
of  its  own,  but  because  it  compels  me  to 
re-think  its  concept,  in  virtue  of  that 
necessity  of  the  concept  which  hovers 
over  us  both  and  appears  subjectively 
in  me  and  objectively  in  the  concept 
itself.  Through  this  re-thinking  there 
reveals  itself  to  us  at  the  same  time,  as 


INTRODUCTION  31 

Hegel  says, — just  as  this  is  our  own  sub- 
jective activity — the  true  nature  of  the 
object."  So  can  speak  only  a  man  who  is 
able  to  illuminate  the  life  of  thought 
with  the  light  of  inner  experience. 

In  my  Philosophy  of  Freedom  (Berlin, 
1894,  Verlag  Emil  Felber),  starting  from 
other  points  of  view,  I  have  also  pointed 
out  the  root-fact  of  the  inner  life  (p.  46) : 
*'It  is  therefore  unquestionable:  in  our 
thinking  we  hold  the  world-process  by 
one  corner,  where  we  must  be  present, 
if  it  is  to  come  about  at  all.  And  that 
is  just  the  very  thing  we  are  here  con- 
cerned with.  That  is  just  the  reason 
why  things  seem  to  confront  me  so 
mysteriously:  that  I  am  so  without  any 
share  in  their  coming  into  existence.  I 
simply  find  them  there;  in  thinking, 
however,  I  know  how  it  is  done.  Hence 
one  can  find  no  more  original  starting 


32    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

point  for  a  consideration  of  the  world- 
process  than  that  of  thought." 

For  one  who  looks  thus  upon  the  inner 
life  of  man,  it  is  also  obvious  what  is  the 
meaning  of  human  cognition  within  the 
whole  world-process.  It  is  not  a  mere 
empty  accompaniment  to  the  rest  of  the 
world  happenings.  It  would  be  such  if 
it  represented  merely  an  ideal  repetition 
of  what  is  outwardly  present.  But 
in  cognition  something  is  accomplished 
which  accomplishes  itself  nowhere  in 
the  outer  world:  the  world -process  sets 
before  itself  its  own  spiritual  being.  The 
world-process  would  be  to  all  eternity 
a  mere  half -thing,  if  it  did  not  attain  to 
this  confrontation.  Therewithal  man's 
inner  experience  finds  its  place  in  the 
objective  world-process;  and  without  it 
that  process  would  be  incomplete. 

It  is  'apparent  that  only  the  life  which 


INTRODUCTION  33 

is  ruled  by  the  inner  sense,  man's  highest 
spiritual  life  in  its  most  proper  sense, — it 
is  this  life  only  which  can  thus  raise 
man  above  himself.  For  only  in  this  life 
does  the  being  of  things  unveil  itself 
before  itself.  The  matter  lies  quite 
differently  in  regard  to  the  lower  per- 
ceptive power.  For  instance,  the  eye 
which  meditates  the  seeing  of  an  object 
is  the  theatre  of  a  process  which,  in  con- 
trast to  the  inner  life,  is  exactly  like  any 
other  external  process.  My  organs  are 
members  of  the  spacial  world  like  other 
things,  and  their  perceptions  are  pro- 
cesses in  time  like  any  others.  Further, 
their  being  only  appears  when  they  are 
sunk  into  the  inner  life.  I  thus  live  a 
double  life;  the  life  of  an  object  among 
other  objects,  which  lives  within  its 
own  embodiment  and  perceives  through 
its  organs  what  lies  outside  this  embodi- 


34    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ment;  and  above  this  life  a  higher  life, 
that  knows  no  such  inside  and  outside, 
that  extends,  stretching  and  bridging 
over  both  the  outside  world  and  itself. 
I  shall  therefore  be  forced  to  say:  at  one 
time  I  am  an  individual,  a  limited  "self*; 
at  another  time  I  am  a  general,  universal 
''Self."  This,  too,  Paul  Asmus  has  ex- 
pressed in  excellent  words  {cp.  his  book: 
Die  indogermanischen  Religionen  in  den 
Hauptpunkten  Hirer  Entwickelung,  p.  29 
of  Vol.  I.): 

''The  activity  of  merging  ourselves 
in  something  else,  is  what  we  call  '  think- 
ing'; in  thinking,  the  ego  has  fulfilled 
its  concept,  it  has  given  itself  up  as 
a  single  thing;  therefore,  in  thinking 
do  we  find  ourselves  in  a  sphere  which  is 
alike  for  all,  for  the  principle  of  separate- 
ness  which  is  involved  in  the  relation  of 
our  'self    to   that   which   is  other  than 


INTRODUCTION  35 

itself  has  vanished  in  the  activity  of 
the  self-cancening  of  the  single  *self/ 
and  there  remains  then  only  the_*  Self- 
hood' common  to  all." 

Spinoza  has  exactly  the  same  thing  in 
view  when  he  describes,  as  the  highest 
activity  of  knowing,  that  which''  advances 
from  an  adequate  conception  of  the  real 
natiire  of  some  of  the  attributes  of  God 
to  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  things."  This  advancing  is  no  other 
than  the  illimiination  of  things  with  the 
light  of  inner  experience.  Spinoza  de- 
scribes in  glowing  colours  the  life  in  this 
inner  experience:  "The  highest  virtue  of 
the  soul  is  to  know  God,  or  to  obtain  in- 
sight into  things  in  the  third — the  highest 
— mode  of  knowing.  This  virtue  is  the 
greater,  the  more  the  soul  knows  things 
by  this  method  of  knowing ;  thus  he  who 
can  grasp  things  in  this  mode  of  knowing 


36    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

attains  the  highest  human  perfection 
and  consequently  becomes  filled  with  the 
highest  joy,  accompanied,  moreover,  by 
the  conceptions  of  himself  and  of  virtue. 
Thus  there  arises  from  this  mode  of 
knowing  the  highest  peace  of  soul  that 
is  possible." 

He  who  knows  things  in  this  way, 
transforms  himself  within  himself;  for 
his  single  separated  ''self"  becomes 
at  such  moments  absorbed  by  the  uni- 
versal "Self";  all  beings  appear  not  to 
a  single  limited  individual  in  subordin- 
ated importance,  they  appear  to  ''them- 
selves." On  this  level  there  remains  no 
difference  between  Plato  and  me;  what 
separated  us  belongs  to  a  lower  level  of 
cognition.  We  are  separated  only  as 
individuals;  the  individual  which  works 
within  us  is  one  and  the  same.  But 
about  this  fact  it  is  impossible  to  argue 


INTRODUCTION  37 

with  one  who  has  no  experience  of  it. 
He  will  everlastingly  emphasise:  Plato 
and  you  are  two.  That  this  duality, 
that  all  multiplicity,  is  reborn  as  unity 
in  the  outbursting  life  of  the  highest 
level  of  knowledge:  that  cannot  be 
proved,  that  must  be  experienced.  Para- 
doxical as  it  may  sound,  it  is  the  truth: 
the  idea  which  Plato  conceived  and  the 
like  idea  which  I  conceive  are  not  two 
ideas.  It  is  one  and  the  same  idea.  And 
there  are  not  two  ideas:  one  in.  Plato's 
head  and  one  in  mine ;  but  in  the  higher 
sense  Plato's  head  and  mine  interpene- 
trate each  other;  all  heads  interpenetrate 
which  grasp  one  and  the  same  idea;  and 
this  idea  is  only  once  there  as  a  single 
idea.  It  is  there;  and  the  heads  all  go 
to  one  and  the  same  place  in  order  to 
have  this  idea  in  them. 

The    transformation   that    is   brought 


38    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

about  in  the  whole  being  of  man  when  he 
learns  to  see  things  thus,  is  indicated  in 
beautiful  words  by  the  Hindu  poem,  the 
Bhagavad-Gita,  about  which  Wilhelm 
von  Humboldt  said  that  he  was  thank- 
ful to  the  fate  which  had  allowed  him  to 
live  long  enough  to  become  acquainted 
with  this  work.  In  this  poem,  the  inner 
light  declares:  "An  eternal  ray  from  my- 
self, having  attained  a  distinct  existence 
in  the  world  of  personal  life,  draws 
around  itself  the  five  senses  and  the  in- 
dividual soul,  which  belong  to  nature. 
When  the  spirit,  shining  from  above,  em- 
bodies itself  in  space  and  time,  or  when 
it  quits  embodiment,  it  seizes  upon 
things  and  carries  them  away  with  it, 
as  the  zephyr  seizes  the  perfumes  of  the 
flowers  and  bears  them  away  with  it. 
The  inner  light  rules  the  ear,  touch, 
taste  and  smell,  as  also  the  emotions: 


INTRODUCTION  39 

it  knits  together  the  Hnk  between  itself 
and  the  objects  of  the  senses.  The 
ignorant  know  not  when  the  inner  light 
shines  forth  or  is  extinguished,  nor  when 
it  is  married  to  objects;  only  he  who 
partakes  of  the  inner  light  can  know 
thereof." 

So  strongly  does  the  Bhagavad-Gita 
insist  upon  the  transformation  of  the 
man,  that  it  says  of  the  wise  man  that 
he  can  no  longer  err,  no  longer  sin.  If, 
apparently,  he  errs  or  sins,  then  he 
must  illuminate  his  thoughts  or  his  ac- 
tions with  a  light  wherein  that  no  longer 
appears  as  error  or  as  sin  which  to  the 
ordinary  consciousness  appears  as  such. 
"He  who  has  raised  himself  and  whose 
knowledge  is  of  the  purest  kind,  he  kills 
not,  nor  does  he  stain  himself,  even 
though  he  should  have  slain  another." 
This  points  only  to  the  same  basic  mood 


40    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of    the    soul    flowing    from    the   highest 
knowledge,  of  which  Spinoza,  after  having 
described  it  in  his  Ethics,  breaks  out  into 
the    passionate  words:     "Here   is    con- 
cluded that  which  I  aimed  to  bring  for- 
ward in  regard  to  the  power  of  the  soul 
over  its  affections  or  in  regard  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  soul.     Hence  it  is  clear  how 
very  greatly  the  wise  man  is  superior  to 
the  ignorant,  and  how  much  more  power- 
ful than  he  who  is  ruled  only  by  his  lusts. 
For  the  ignorant  is  not  merely  driven 
hither  and  thither  by  external  causes  in 
many   ways   and   never   attains   to   the 
true  peace  of  soul,  but  he  also  lives  in 
ignorance    of    himself,    of    God    and  of 
things,    and   when   his   suffering   ceases, 
his  existence  ceases  also;  while  on  the 
other  hand,  the  wise  man,  as  such,  feels 
hardly  any  disturbance  in  his  spirit  and 
ever  enjoys  the  true  peace  of  the  soul. 


INTRODUCTION  41 

Even  if  the  road  which  I  have  outlined 
as  leading  thereto  appears  very  difficult, 
still  it  can  be  found.  And  well  may  it 
be  difficult,  because  it  is  so  seldom  found. 
For  how  could  it  be  possible,  if  salvation 
lay  close  at  hand  and  could  be  found 
without  great  trouble,  that  it  should  be 
neglected  by  almost  all?  Yet  all  that 
is  noble  is  as  difficult  as  it  is  rare/' 

Goethe  has  indicated  in  monumental 
form  the  point  of  view  of  the  highest 
knowledge  in  the  words:  "If  I  know  my 
relation  to  myself  and  to  the  outer 
world,  I  call  it  truth.  And  thus  every 
one  can  have  his  own  truth,  and  yet  it 
is  always  one  and  the  same."  Each 
has  his  own  truth:  because  each  is  an 
individual,  separate  being,  beside  and 
along  with  others.  These  other  beings 
act  upon  him  through  his  organs.  From 
the  individual   standpoint   at   which  he 


42    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

is  placed,  and  according  to  the  consti- 
tution of  his  power  of  perception,  he 
builds  up  his  own  truth  for  himself  in 
intercourse  with  the  things  around  him. 
He  acquires  his  relation  to  things.  If, 
then,  he  enters  into  self-knowledge,  if 
he  learns  to  know  his  relation  to  himself, 
then  his  special  separate  truth  is  merged 
in  the  universal  Truth;  and  this  uni- 
versal Truth  is  in  all  the  same. 

The  understanding  of  the  raising  of 
the  individual,  of  the  single  self,  into  the 
Universal  Self  in  the  personality,  is  re- 
garded by  deeper  natures  as  the  secret 
which  reveals  itself  in  the  inmost  heart 
of  man  as  the  root-mystery  of  life.  And 
Goethe  has  found  an  apt  expression  for 
this:  "And  so  long  as  thou  hast  not  that, 
this:  Die  and  Become!  Then  thou  art 
but  a  melancholy  guest  upon  this  dark 
earth." 


INTRODUCTION  43 

Not  a  mere  repetition  in  thought,  but 
a  real  part  of  the  world-process,  is  that 
which  goes  on  in  man's  inner  life.  The 
world  would  not  be  what  it  is  if  the  factor 
belonging  thereto  in  the  human  soul  did 
not  play  its  part.  And  if  one  calls  the 
highest  which  is  attainable  by  man  the 
Divine,  then  one  must  say  that  this 
Divine  is  not  present  as  something  ex- 
ternal, to  be  repeated  pictorially  in  the 
human  mind,  but  that  this  Divine  is 
awakened  in  man.  Angelus  Silesius  has 
found  the  right  words  for  this:  *'I 
know  that  without  me  God  can  live  no 
instant;  if  I  become  nothing,  He  must 
of  necessity  give  up  the  ghost."  ''With- 
out me  God  may  make  no  single  smallest 
worm:  if  I  do  not  sustain  it  with  Him, 
then  it  must  straightway  perish."  Only 
he  can  make  such  an  assertion  who 
presupposes    that     in    man     something 


44    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

comes  to  light,  without  which  external 
being  cannot  exist.  If  everything  per- 
taining to  the  "worm"  were  there  present 
without  man,  then  one  could  not  possibly 
say  that  it  must  perish  if  man  did  not 
sustain  it. 

The  innermost  kernel  of  the  world 
comes  to  life  as  spiritual  content  in  self- 
knowledge.  The  experience  of  self-know- 
ledge means  for  man  working  and  weaving 
within  the  kernel  of  the  world.  He  who 
is  permeated  with  self-knowledge  natur- 
ally carries  out  his  own  action  in  the 
light  of  self-knowledge.  Himian  action 
is — in  general — determined  by  motives. 
Robert  Hamerling,  the  poet-philosopher, 
has  rightly  said  {Atomistik  des   Willens, 

p.  213): 

"A  man  can  indeed  do  what  he  wills 
• — ^but  he  cannot  will  whatever  he 
pleases,  because  his    will    is  determined 


INTRODUCTION  45 

by     motives.     He     cannot     will     what- 
ever he  pleases?     Look    again  at  these 
words    more     closely.      Is     there     any 
sensible  meaning  in  them?     Freedom  of 
the  will  ought  then  to  consist  in  being 
able  to  will  something   without   reason, 
without  motive.     But  what  does  willing 
mean  other  than  the  'having  a  reason* 
for    preferring    to   do   or   endeavour   to 
attain  this,  rather  than  that?     To  will 
something  without  reason,  without  mo- 
tive, would  mean  to  will  something  'with- 
out willing  it.'     The  concept  of  motive 
is  inseparably  bound  up  with  that  of  will- 
ing.    Without  a  definite  motive  the  will 
is  an  empty  potentiality:  only  through 
a  motive  does  it  become  active  and  real. 
It  is  therefore  quite  correct  that  man's 
will  is  in  so  far  not  free  as  its  direction 
is  always  determined  by  the  strongest 
motive." 


46    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

For  all  action  that  is  not  accomplished 
in  the  light  of  self-knowledge,  the 
motive,  the  reason  for  action,  must 
needs  be  felt  as  a  constraint.  But  the 
matter  is  otherwise  when  the  reason  or 
motive  is  taken  up  into  self-knowledge. 
Then  this  reason  becomes  a  part  of  the 
self.  The  willing  is  no  longer  deter- 
mined; it  determines  itself.  The  law- 
abidingness,  the  motives  of  willing,  now 
no  longer  rule  over  the  one  who  wills, 
but  are  one  and  the  same  with  this 
willing.  To  illuminate  the  laws  of  one's 
action  with  the  light  of  self -observation 
means  to  overcome  all  constraint  of 
motive.  By  so  doing,  will  transfers  itself 
into  the  realm  of  freedom. 

It  is  not  all  human  action  which  bears 
the  marks  of  freedom.  Only  such  action 
is  free  action  which  in  its  every  part  is 
lighted  up  with  the  glow  of  self-observa- 


INTRODUCTION  47 

tion.  And  because  self -observation  raises 
the  individual  self  up  to  the  Universal  Self, 
therefore  free  action  is  that  which  flows 
from  the  Universal  Self.  The  old  con- 
troversy whether  man's  will  is  free  or  sub- 
ject to  a  universal  law,  to  an  unalterable 
necessity,  is  a  problem  wrongly  stated. 
All  action  is  bound  which  is  done  by 
a  man  as  an  individual;  all  action  free 
which  is  accomplished  after  his  spiritual 
re-birth.  Man,  therefore,  is  not,  in  general, 
either  free  or  bound.  He  is  both  the  one 
and  the  other.  He  is  bound  before  his 
re-birth ;  and  he  can  become  free  through 
this  re-birth.  The  individual  upward 
development  of  man  consists  in  the 
transformation  of  unfree  willing  into 
will  possessing  the  character  of  freedom. 
The  man  who  has  realised  the  law-abid- 
ingness  of  his  action  as  his  own,  has 
overcome    the    constraint    of    this    law- 


48    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

abidingness  and  therewith  of  un-freedom. 
Freedom  is  not  from  the  outset  a  fact 
of  himian  existence,  but  a  goal  thereof. 
With  the  attainment  of  free  action, 
man  resolves  a  contradiction  between 
the  world  and  himself.  His  own  deeds 
become  deeds  of  universal  being.  He 
feels  himself  in  the  fullest  harmony  with 
this  universal  being.  He  feels  every 
discord  between  himself  and  another  as 
the  outcome  of  a  not  yet  fully  awakened 
self.  But  such  is  the  fate  of  the  self, 
that  only  in  its  separation  from  the 
whole  can  it  find  its  contact  with  this 
whole.  Man  would  not  be  man  if  he 
were  not  shut  off  as  an  individual  self 
from  everything  else;  but  also  he  is  not 
man  in  the  highest  sense  if  he  does  not, 
as  such  a  shut-off  and  isolated  self,  widen 
himself  out  again  into  the  Universal 
Self.     It  belongs  through  and  through  to 


INTRODUCTION  49 

the  nature  of  man  that  it  should  over- 
come an  inherent  contradiction  which  has 
lain  therein  from  the  beginning. 

Any  one  who  regards  spirit  as,  in  the 
main,  logical  understanding,  may  well 
feel  his  blood  run  cold  at  the  idea  that 
objects  should  be  supposed  to  undergo 
their  re-birth  in  spirit.  He  will  compare 
the  fresh,  living  flower,  outside  there  in 
its  fulness  of  coloiir,  with  the  cold,  faded, 
schematic  thought  of  the  flower.  He  will 
feel  himself  particularly  ill  at  ease  with 
the  conception  that  the  man  who  draws 
his  motives  from  the  solitude  of  his  own 
self-consciousness  is  more  free  than  the 
original,  naive  personality  which  acts 
from  its  immediate  impulses,  from  the 
fulness  of  its  own  nature.  To  one  who 
sees  only  one-sided  logic,  another  man 
who  sinks  himself  into  his  own  inner 
being  will  appear   like  a  mere  walking 


50    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

scheme  of  concepts,  like  a  mere  ghost 
in  contrast  with  the  man  who  remains  in 
his  own  natural  individuality. 

Such  objections  to  the  re-birth  of  things 
in  spirit  are  especially  to  be  heard  from 
those  whose  power  of  perception  fails  in 
the  presence  of  things  with  a  purely 
spiritual  content;  although  they  are  well 
provided  with  healthy  organs  of  sense- 
perception  and  with  impulses  and  passions 
full  of  life.  As  soon  as  they  are  called 
upon  to  perceive  the  purely  spiritual,  the 
power  to  do  so  fails  them ;  they  can  deal 
only  with  mere  conceptual  husks,  when 
even  they  are  not  limited  to  empty 
words.  They  remain,  therefore,  in  what 
concerns  spiritual  content,  men  of  "dry, 
abstract  understanding."  But  the  man 
who  in  things  purely  spiritual  possesses 
a  gift  of  perception  like  that  in  things 
of  the  senses,  finds  life  assuredly  not  the 


INTRODUCTION  51 

poorer  when  he  has  enriched  it  with  its 
spiritual  content.  If  I  look  out  upon  a 
flower,  why  should  its  rich  colours  lose 
aught  whatever  of  their  freshness,  because 
not  only  does  my  eye  see  the  colours,  but 
my  inner  sense  also  perceives  the  spiritual 
being  of  the  flower?  Why  should  the 
life  of  my  personality  become  poorer, 
because  I  do  not  follow  my  passions  and 
impulses  in  spiritual  blindness,  but  il- 
luminate them  throughout  with  the  light 
of  higher  knowledge?  Not  poorer,  but 
fuller,  richer,  is  that  life  which  is  given 
back  again  in  the  spirit. 


MEISTER  ECKHART 

The  world  of  Meister  Eckhart's  con- 
ceptions is  aglow  through  and  through 
with  the  feeling  that  things  become  re- 
born as  higher  entities  in  the  spirit  of 
man.  Like  the  greatest  Christian  theo- 
logian of  the  Middle  Ages,  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  who  lived  from  1225  till  1274, 
Meister  Eckhart  belonged  to  the  Domin- 
ican Order.  Eckhart  was  an  unqualified 
admirer  of  St.  Thomas;  and  this  will 
seem  the  more  intelligible  when  we  fix 
our  gaze  upon  Eckhart's  whole  manner 
of  conceiving  things.  He  believed  him- 
self to  be  as  completely  in  hannony  with 
the  teachings  of  the  Christian  Church  as 

he  assumed  a  like  agreement  on  the  part 

52 


MEISTER  ECKHART  53 

of  St.  Thomas.  Eckhart  had  neither 
the  desire  to  take  aught  away  from  the 
content  of  Christianity,  nor  the  wish  to 
add  anything  to  it;  but  he  desired  to 
bring  forward  this  content  anew  in  his 
own  way.  It  forms  no  part  of  the 
spiritual  needs  of  a  personaHty  such  as 
he  was  to  set  up  new  truths  of  this  or 
the  other  kind  in  the  place  of  old  ones. 
Such  a  personality  has  grown  completely 
intertwined  with  the  content  which  it 
has  received  from  tradition;  but  it  craves 
to  give  to  this  content  a  new  form,  a  new 
life. 

Eckhart  desired,  without  doubt,  to 
remain  an  orthodox  Christian.  The 
Christian  truths  were  his  own;  only  he 
desired  to  regard  these  truths  in  another 
way  from  that,  for  instance,  in  which 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  had  done.  St. 
Thomas  accepted  two  sources  of  know- 


54     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ledge:  Revelation,  in  matters  of  faith, 
and  Reason,  in  those  of  research.  Reason 
recognises  the  laws  of  things,  that  is,  the 
spiritual  in  nature.  Reason  can  raise  it- 
self above  nature  and  grasp  in  the  spirit 
from  one  side  the  Divine  Being  under- 
lying nature.  But  it  does  not  attain  in 
this  way  to  merging  itself  in  the  full  be- 
ing of  God.  A  still  higher  truth-content 
must  come  to  meet  it.  That  is  given 
in  the  Holy  Scripture,  which  reveals 
what  man  cannot  attain  to  through  him- 
self. The  truth-content  of  the  Scripture 
must  be  accepted  by  man;  Reason  can 
defend  it.  Reason  can  seek  to  understand 
it  as  well  as  possible  through  its  powers 
of  knowing;  but  never  can  Reason  en- 
gender that  truth  from  within  the  spirit 
of  man.  Not  what  the  spirit  perceives 
is  the  highest  truth,  but  what  has  come 
to  this  spirit  from  without. 


MEISTER  ECKHART  55 

St.  Augustine  declares  himself  unable 
to  find  within  himself  the  source  for  that 
which  he  should  believe.     He  says:  "I 
would  not  believe  in  the  Gospel,  did  not 
the   authority   of  the   Catholic   Church 
move  me  thereto.''     That  is  in  the  same 
spirit  as  the  Evangelist,  who  points  to 
the     external    testimony:     "That  .   .   . 
which  we  have  heard,  which  we  have 
seen  with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked 
upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled,  of 
the  Word  of  Life;  .  .  .  that  which  we 
have  seen  and  heard  declare  we  unto  you, 
that  ye  also  may  have  fellowship  with 
us."     But  Meister  Eckhart  would  rather 
impress  upon  man  the  words  of  Christ: 
''It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away: 
for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will 
not  come  unto  you";  and  he  explains 
these  words  by  saying:   ''Ji^st  as  if  he 
had   said:    Ye  have    set    too   much  joy 


56     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Upon  my  present  appearance,  therefore 
the  full  joy  of  the  Holy  Ghost  cannot 
come  to  you." 

Eckhart  thinks  that  he  is  speaking 
of  no  God  other  than  that  God  of  whom 
Augustine,  and  the  Evangelist,  and 
Thomas,  speak,  and  yet  this  testimony 
as  to  God  is  not  his  testimony,  their 
witness  is  not  his.  ''Some  people  want 
to  see  God  with  the  same  eyes  they  see 
a  cow  withal,  and  want  to  love  God  as 
they  would  love  a  cow.  So  they  love 
God  for  the  sake  of  outer  riches  and 
inner  comfort;  but  such  folk  do  not 
rightly  love  God.  .  .  .  Simple  folk 
fancy  they  should  behold  God  as  though 
He  stood  there  and  they  here.  But  it 
is  not  so.  God  and  I  are  one  in  the  act 
of  knowing  {im  Erkennen).'"  What  un- 
derlies such  expressions  in  Eckhart's 
mouth  is  nothing  else  than  the  experience 


MEISTER  ECKHART  57 

of  the  inner  sense;  and  this  experience 
shows  him  things  in  a  higher  Hght.  He 
therefore  beUeves  himself  to  have  no 
need  of  an  external  light  in  order  to  at- 
tain to  the  highest  insight:  *'A  Master 
says:  God  became  man,  whereby  the 
whole  hiiman  race  is  uplifted  and  made 
worthy.  Thereof  may  we  be  glad  that 
Christ  our  brother  of  His  own  strength 
rose  above  all  the  choirs  of  angels  and 
sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father. 
That  Master  spake  well;  but,  in  truth, 
I  would  give  little  for  it.  What  would  it 
help  me,  had  I  a  brother  who  was  a  rich 
man,  and  I  therewithal  a  poor  man? 
What  would  it  help  me,  had  I  a  brother 
who  was  a  wise  man,  and  I  were  a 
fool?  .  .  .  The  Heavenly  Father  be- 
getteth  His  Only-Begotten  Son  in  Him- 
self and  in  me.  Wherefore  in  Himself 
and  in  me?     I  am  one  with  Him;  and 


58     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

He  has  no  power  to  shut  me  out.  In  the 
self -same  work,  the  Holy  Ghost  receives 
its  being  and  proceeds  from  me,  as  from 
God.  Wherefore?  I  am  in  God,  and  if 
the  Holy  Ghost  takes  not  its  being  from 
me,  neither  does  it  take  it  from  God.  In 
no  wise  am  I  shut  out.** 

When  Eckhart  recalls  the  saying  of 
St.  Paul:  "Put  ye  on  Jesus  Christ,"  he 
means  to  imply  in  this  saying  the  mean- 
ing: Sink  yourselves  into  yourselves,  dive 
down  into  self -contemplation :  and  from 
out  the  depths  of  your  being,  God  will 
shine  forth  to  meet  you;  He  illumines 
all  things  for  you;  you  have  found  Him 
within  you;  you  have  become  united 
with  God's  Being.  *'God  became  man, 
that  I  might  become  God.** 

In  his  booklet  upon  Loneliness,  Eckhart 
expresses  himself  as  follows  upon  the  re- 
lation  of   the    outer    perception   to   the 


MEISTER  ECKHART  59 

inner:  "Here  thou  must  know  that  the 
Masters  say   that  in   every   man  there 
are  two  kinds  of  man:  the  one  is  called 
the  outer  man,  and  yet  he  acts  through 
the  power  of  the  soul.     The  other  man  is 
called  the  inner  man,  that  is,  that  which 
is    within    the   man.     Now    thou   must 
know  that  every  man  who  loveth  God 
maketh  no  more  use  of  the  powers  of 
the  soul  in  the  outer  man  than  so  far  as 
the  five  senses  absolutely  require;  and 
that  which  is  within  turns  not  itself  to 
the  five  senses,  save  in  so  far  as  it  is  the 
guide  and  conductor  of  the  five  senses,  and 
shepherds  them,  so  that  they  follow  not 
after  their  craving  to  bestiality.*'     One 
who  speaks  in  such  wise  of  the  inner  man 
can  no  longer  direct  his  gaze  upon  a  Being 
of  things  lying  outside  himself ;  for  he  sees 
clearly  that  from  no  kind  or  species  of  the 
outer  world  can  this  Being  come  to  him. 


6o     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

An  objector  might  urge:  What  can  it 
matter  to  the  things  of  the  outer  world, 
what  you  add  to  them  out  of  your  own 
mind?  Do  but  rely  upon  your  own 
senses.  They  alone  give  you  informa- 
tion of  the  outer  world.  Do  not  adul- 
terate, by  a  mental  addition,  what  your 
senses  give  you  in  purity,  without  ad- 
mixture, as  the  image  of  the  outer  world. 
Your  eye  tells  you  what  colour  is;  what 
your  mind  knows  about  colour,  of  that 
there  is  nothing  whatever  in  colour 
itself.  To  this,  from  Meister  Eckhart's 
standpoint,  the  answer  would  have  to 
be:  The  senses  are  a  physical  apparatus; 
therefore  what  they  have  to  tell  us  about 
objects  can  concern  only  that  which  is 
physical  in  the  objects.  And  this  phy- 
sical factor  in  the  objects  communicates 
itself  to  me  in  such  wise  that  in  myself 
a  physical  process  is  set  going. 


MEISTER  ECKHART  6l 

Colour,  as   a  physical  process  of  the 
outer  world,  sets  up  a  physical  process 
in  my  eye  and  brain.     Thereby  I  per- 
ceive colour.     But  in  this  manner  I  can 
perceive   of   colour  only   so  much  as  is 
physical,  sensuous.   Sense-perception  cuts 
out    everything   non-sensuous  from  ob- 
jects.    Objects  are  thus  by  sense-percep- 
tion stripped  of  everything  about  them 
which   is  non-sensuous.     If   I   then  ad- 
vance to  the  spiritual,  the  ideal  content, 
I  in  fact  only  reinstate  in  the  objects 
what  sense-perception  has  shut  out  there- 
from.    Thus  sense-perception  does  not 
exhibit  to  me  the  deepest  Being  of  ob- 
jects, it  rather  separates  me  from  that 
being.     But  the  spiritual,  the  ideal  con- 
ception, seizing  upon  them  again,  unites 
me  with  that  being.     It  shows  me  that 
objects  are  inwardly  of  exactly  the  same 
spiritual  (geistigen)  nature  as  I  myself. 


62     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  barrier  between  myself  and  the 
outer  world  falls  through  this  spiritual 
conception  of  things.  I  am  separated 
from  the  external  world  in  so  far  as  I  am 
a  thing  of  the  senses  among  other  things 
of  the  senses.  Colour  and  my  eye  are 
two  different  entities.  My  brain  and  a 
plant  are  two  different  things.  But  the 
ideal  content  of  the  plant  and  of  colour 
belong  together  with  the  ideal  content 
of  my  brain  and  eye  alike  to  a  single 
ideal  entity. 

This  way  of  looking  at  things  must  not 
be  confused  with  the  very  widespread 
anthropomorphising  conception  of  the 
world,  which  imagines  that  it  grasps  the 
objects  of  the  outer  world  by  ascribing 
to  them  qualities  of  a  physical  nature, 
which  are  supposed  to  resemble  the 
qualities  of  the  human  soul.  This  view 
asserts:  When  we  meet  another  human 


MEISTER  ECKHART  63 

being,  we  perceive  in  him  only  sensuous 
characteristics.  I  cannot  see  into  my 
fellow-man's  inner  life.  I  infer  from 
what  I  see  and  hear  of  him,  his  inner 
life,  his  soul.  Thus  the  soul  is  never 
anything  which  I  can  directly  perceive; 
I  perceive  a  soul  only  within  myself. 
My  thoughts,  my  imaginations,  my  feel- 
ings, no  man  sees.  Now  just  as  I  have 
such  an  inner  life,  alongside  of  the  life 
which  can  be  outwardly  perceived,  so, 
too,  all  other  beings  must  have  such  an 
inner  life. 

Thus  concludes  one  who  occupies  the 
standpoint  of  the  anthropomorphising 
conception  of  the  world.  What  I  per- 
ceive externally  in  the  plant,  must  equally 
be  the  outer  side  of  something  inward,  of  a 
soul,  which  I  must  add  in  my  imagination 
to  what  I  actually  perceive.  And  since 
for  me  there  exists  but  one  single  inner 


64     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

world,  namely,  my  own,  therefore  I  can 
conceive  of  the  inner  world  of  other 
beings  only  as  resembling  my  own  inner 
world.  Along  this  line  of  argument  one 
comes  to  a  sort  of  universal  ensouling  of 
all  nature  (Pan-psychism) . 

This  view  depends,  however,  on  a 
failure  to  recognise  what  the  awakened 
inner  sense  really  gives  us.  The  spiritual 
{geistig)  content  of  an  external  object, 
which  reveals  itself  to  me  in  my  inner 
self,  is  not  anything  added  in  or  by 
thought  to  the  outer  perception.  It  is 
just  as  little  this  as  is  the  spirit  of  another 
man.  I  perceive  this  spiritual  content 
through  the  inner  sense  just  in  the  same 
way  as  I  perceive  its  physical  content 
through  the  external  senses.  And  what 
I  call  my  inner  life  in  the  above  sense 
{i.e.,  thoughts,  feelings,  etc.),  is  not  at 
all  in  the  higher  sense,  my  spirit  {Geist). 


MEISTER  ECKHART  65 

This  so-called  inner  life  is  only  the  out- 
come of  purely  sensuous  processes,  and 
belongs  to  me  only  as  a  purely  individual 
personality,  which  is  nothing  more  than 
the  result  of  its  physical  organisation. 
If  I  transfer  this  inner  life  to  outer  things, 
I  am,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  thinking  in  the 
air. 

My  personal  soul -life,  my  thoughts, 
memories,  and  feelings,  are  in  me,  be- 
cause I  am  a  nature-being  organised  in 
such  and  such  a  way,  with  a  perfectly 
definite  sense-apparatus,  with  a  perfectly 
definite  nervous  system.  I  have  no  right 
to  transfer  this  my  human  soul  to  other 
things.  I  should  only  be  entitled  to  do 
so  if  I  happened  to  find  an3rwhere  a 
similarly  organised  nervous  system.  But 
my  individual  soul  is  not  the  highest 
spiritual  element  in  me.  This  highest 
spiritual  element  must  first  be  awakened 


66     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

through  the  inner  sense;  and  this  awak- 
ened spiritual  element  in  me  is  also  one 
and  the  same  with  the  spiritual  element 
in  all  things.  The  plant  appears  im- 
mediately in  its  own  proper  spirituality 
to  this  spiritual  element, — I  have  no  need 
to  endow  it  with  a  spirituality  like  unto 
my  own. 

All  talk  about  the  unknown  ''thing-in- 
itself"  loses  any  kind  of  meaning  with 
this  conception  of  the  world;  for  it  is 
just  that  very  ''thing-in-itself "  which 
reveals  itself  to  the  inner  sense.  All 
such  talk  originates  simply  in  the  fact 
that  those  who  talk  thus  are  unable  to 
recognise  in  the  spiritual  contents  of 
their  own  inner  being  the  ''things-in- 
themselves . ' '  They  think  that  they  know 
in  their  own  inner  selves  mere  shadows 
and  schemes  without  being, — ''mere 
concepts  and  ideas"  of  things.     But  as 


MEISTER  ECKHART  67 

they  still  have  a  sort  of  premonition  of 
the  ''thing-in-itself,"  they  therefore  be- 
lieve that  this  ''thing-in-itself"  is  conceal- 
ing itself,  and  that  there  are  limits  set 
to  man's  power  of  knowing.  One  cannot 
prove  to  such  as  are  entangled  in  this 
beHef,  that  they  must  grasp  the  ''thing- 
in-itself"  in  their  own  inner  being,  for 
even  if  one  were  to  put  it  before  them, 
they  would  still  never  recognise  or  admit 
this  ''thing-in-itself."  But  it  is  just  this 
recognition  with  which  we  are  concerned. 
All  that  Meister  Eckhart  says  is 
saturated  with  this  recognition.  "Of 
this  take  a  comparison:  A  door  opens 
and  shuts  upon  a  hinge.  If,  now,  I 
compare  the  outer  plank  of  this  door  to 
the  outer  man,  I  must  then  compare  the 
hinge  to  the  inner  man.  .  Now,  when  the 
door  opens  and  shuts,  the  outer  plank 
moves  to  and  fro,  while  yet  the  hinge 


68     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

remains  constantly  immovable  and  is  in 
no  way  changed  thereby.  In  like  manner 
it  is  here  also."  As  an  individual  sense- 
being,  I  can  investigate  things  in  all  direc- 
tions— the  door  opens  and  shuts,- — if  I  do 
not  spiritually  give  birth  within  me  to  the 
perceptions  of  the  senses,  then  do  I  know 
nothing  of  their  nature — the  hinge  does 
not  move ! 

The  illumination  brought  about  through 
the  inner  sense  is,  according  to  Eck- 
hart's  view,  the  entrance  of  God  into 
the  soul.  The  light  of  knowledge  which 
flames  up  through  this  entrance,  he  calls 
the  "little  spark  of  the  soul."  The 
point  in  man's  inner  being  at  which  this 
"spark"  flames  up  is  "so  pure,  so  lofty, 
and  so  noble  in  itself,  that  no  creature 
can  be  therein,  but  only  God  alone  dwells 
therein  with  His  purely  Divine  Nature." 
Whosoever  has  kindled  this  "spark"  in 


MEISTER  ECKHART  69 

himself,  no  longer  sees  only  as  sees  the 
ordinary  man  with  his  outer  senses,  and 
with  his  logical  understanding  which 
orders  and  classifies  the  impressions  of 
the  senses,  but  he  sees  how  things  are  in 
themselves.  The  outer  senses  and  the 
classifying  understanding  separate  the 
individual  man  from  other  things;  they 
make  of  him  an  individual  in  space  and 
time,  who  also  perceives  the  other  things 
in  space  and  time.  The  man  illuminated 
by  the  "spark'*  ceases  to  be  a  single 
separated  being.  He  annihilates  his  sep- 
arateness.  All  that  brings  about  the 
difference  between  himself  and  things 
ceases  to  be.  That  he,  as  a  single  being, 
is  that  which  perceives,  no  longer  comes 
into  consideration.  Things  and  he  him- 
self are  no  longer  separated.  Things, 
and  with  them,  God,  see  themselves  in 
him.     "This  spark  is  in  very  deed  God, 


70     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

in  that  it  is  a  single  oneness  and  bears 
within  it  the  imagery  of  all  creattires, 
image  without  image,  and  image  upon 
image." 

Eckhart  proclaims  in  the  most  mag- 
nificent words  the  extinction  of  the  iso- 
lated being:  ''It  is  therefore  to  be 
known,  that  according  to  things  it  is  one 
and  the  same  to  know  God  and  to  be 
known  by  God.  Therein  do  we  know 
God  and  see,  that  He  makes  us  to  see 
and  to  know.  And  as  the  air,  which 
enlighteneth,  is  nothing  other  than  what 
it  enlightens;  for  the  air  giveth  light, 
because  it  is  enlightened;  even  so  do  we 
know  that  we  are  known,  and  that  He 
maketh  us  to  know  Himself." 

On  this  foundation  Meister  Eckhart 
builds  up  his  relation  to  God.  It  is  a 
purely  spiritual  one,  and  cannot  be 
modelled   according  to   any  image  bor- 


MEISTER  ECKHART  71 

rowed  from  human  individual  experience. 
Not  as  one  separated  individual  loves 
another  can  God  love  his  creation:  not 
as  an  architect  builds  a  house  can  God 
have  created  it.  All  such  thoughts  van- 
ish before  the  inner  vision.  It  belongs 
to  God's  very  being  that  He  should  love 
the  world.  A  God  who  could  love  or 
not  love  at  pleasure,  is  imagined  ac- 
cording to  the  likeness  of  the  individual 
man.  ''I  speak  in  good  truth  and  in 
eternal  truth  and  in  everlasting  truth, 
that  God  must  needs  ever  pour  Himself 
forth  in  every  man  who  has  reached  down 
to  his  true  root  to  the  utmost  of  possi- 
bility, so  wholly  and  completely  that  in 
His  life  and  in  His  being,  in  His  nature 
and  in  His  Godhead,  He  keeps  nothing 
back;  He  must  ever  pour  all  forth  in 
fruitful  wise."  And  the  inner  illumina- 
tion  is   something   that   the   soul   must 


^2     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

necessarily  find  when  it  sinks  itself  deep 
into  the  basis  of  its  being. 

From  this  it  is  already  obvious  that 
God's  communication  to  htmianity  can- 
not be  conceived  after  the  fashion  of 
the  revelation  of  one  himian  being  to 
another.  This  communication  may  also 
be  cut  off,  for  one  man  can  shut  himself 
off  from  another ;  but  God  must,  by  virtue 
of  His  very  nature,  reveal  Himself.  ''It 
is  a  sure  and  certain  truth,  that  it  is  a 
necessity  for  God  to  seek  us,  exactly  as 
if  His  very  Godhead  depended  upon  it. 
God  can  as  little  dispense  with  us  as  we 
with  Him.  Even  though  we  turn  away 
from  God,  yet  God  can  never  turn  away 
from  us.'*  Consequently,  man's  relation 
to  God  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  though 
something  image-like,  something  taken 
from  the  individual  himian  being,  were 
contained  therein. 


MEISTER  ECKHART  73 

Eckhart  is  thus  conscious  that  it  be- 
longs to  the  perfectness  of  the  Root-Being 
of  the  world  to  find  Itself  in  the  human 
soul.  This  Root -Being  indeed  would  be 
imperfect,  incomplete,  if  it  lacked  that 
part  of  its  unfoldment  which  comes  to 
light  in  the  soul.  What  happens  in  man 
belongs  to  the  Root-Being;  and  if  it  did 
not  happen,  then  the  Root-Being  would 
be  but  a  part  of  Itself.  In  this  sense, 
man  can  feel  himself  as  a  necessary  part 
of  the  Being  of  the  universe.  This  Eck- 
hart expresses  by  describing  his  feelings 
towards  God  as  follows:  ''I  thank  not 
God  that  He  loveth  me,  for  He  may  not 
do  otherwise;  whether  He  will  it  or  no, 
His  nature  yet  compelleth  Him.  .  .  . 
Therefore  will  I  not  pray  to  God  to  give 
me  anything,  nor  will  I  praise  Him  for 
that  which  He  hath  given  me.  ..." 

But  this  relationship  of  the  soul  to  the 


74     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Root-Being  must  not  be  conceived  of  as 
if  the  soul  in  its  individual  nature  were 
declared  to  be  identical  with  this  Root- 
Being.     The  soul  which  is  entangled  in 
the  sense-world,  and  so  in  the  finite,  has 
as  such  not  yet  got  within  itself  the  con- 
tent of  the  Root-Being.     The  soul  must 
first  develop  that  content  within    itself. 
It  must   annihilate  itself  as  an  isolated 
being;  and  Meister  Eckhart  most  aptly 
characterises    this    annihilation   as  Ent- 
werdung     (un-becoming    or    involution) . 
''When  I  come  to  the  root  of  the  God- 
head, none  ask  me  whence  I  come  and 
where  I  have  been,  and  none  doth  miss 
me,  for  here  there  is  an  E?itwerdung.'' 
Again,  the  following  phrase  speaks  very 
clearly  about  this  relation:  "  I  take  a  cup 
of  water  and  lay  therein  a  mirror  and  set 
it  under  the  disc  of  the  sun.      The  sun 
casts  out  its  shining  light  on  the  mirror 


MEISTER  ECKHART  75 

and  yet  doth  not  pass  away.  The  reflect- 
ing of  the  mirror  in  the  sun  is  sun  in  the 
sun,  and  yet  the  mirror  remains  what  it 
is.  So  is  it  about  God.  God  is  in  the 
soul  with  His  very  nature  and  being  and 
Godhead,  and  yet  He  is  not  the  soul. 
The  reflecting  of  the  soul  in  God,  is  God 
in  God,  and  yet  the  sotil  is  still  that 
which  it  is." 

The  soul  which  gives  itself  up  to  the 
inner  illimiination  knows  in  itself  not 
only  what  this  same  soul  was  before 
its  illimiination;  but  it  also  knows 
that  which  this  soul  only  became 
through  this  illimiination.  ^'We  must 
be  united  with  God  in  being;  we 
must  be  united  with  God  uniquely; 
we  must  be  united  with  God  wholly. 
How  shall  we  be  united  with  God 
in  being?  That  must  happen  in  the 
beholding     and     not     in    the     Wesung. 


76     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

His  being  may  not  become  our  being, 
but  it  shall  be  our  life."  Not  an  already 
existent  life — a  Wesung — is  to  be  known 
in  the  logical  sense ;  but  the  higher  know- 
ing— the  beholding — shall  itself  become 
life;  the  spiritual,  the  ideal  must  be  so 
felt  by  the  beholder,  as  ordinary  daily 
life  is  felt  by  individual  human  nature. 
From  such  starting  points,  Meister 
Eckhart  also  builds  up  a  pure  conception 
of  Freedom.  In  its  ordinary  life  the 
soul  is  not  free;  for  it  is  interwoven  with 
the  realm  of  lower  causes,  and  accom- 
plishes that  to  which  it  is  impelled  by 
these  lower  causes.  But  by  ' '  beholding ' ' 
or  "vision"  it  is  raised  out  of  the  domain 
of  these  causes,  and  acts  no  longer  as  a 
separated  individual  soul.  The  root  of 
being  is  laid  bare  in  this  soul,  and  that 
can  be  moved  to  action  by  naught  save 
by   itself.     ''God   does   not   compel   the 


MEISTER  ECKHART  77 

will;  rather  He  sets  the  will  free,  so  that 
it  wills  not  otherwise  than  what  God 
Himself  wills;  and  the  spirit  desires  not 
to  will  other  than  what  God  wills:  and 
that  is  not  its  un-freedom:  it  is  its  true 
and  real  freedom.  For  freedom  is  that 
we  are  not  bound,  but  free  and  pure  and 
unmixed,  as  we  were  in  our  first  out- 
pouring, as  we  were  set  free  in  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

It  may  be  said  of  the  illuminated 
man  that  he  is  himself  the  being  which 
from  within  itself  determines  what  is 
good  and  what  is  evil.  He  can  do  naught 
absolutely,  but  accomplish  the  good.  For 
he  does  not  serve  the  good,  but  the  good 
realises  and  lives  itself  out  in  him.  *'The 
righteous  man  serveth  neither  God,  nor 
the  creature;  for  he  is  free,  and  the  nearer 
he  is  to  righteousness,  the  more  he  is 
Freedom's  very  self."     What   then,  for 


78     MYSTICvS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Meister  Eckhart,  can  evil  be?  It  can 
be  only  action  under  the  influence  of  the 
lower  mode  of  regarding  things;- — the 
acting  of  a  soul  which  has  not  passed 
through  the  state  of  Entwerdung  (un- 
becoming). Such  a  soul  is  selfish  in  the 
sense  that  it  wills  only  itself.  It  could 
not  bring  its  willing  outwardly  into 
accord  with  moral  ideals.  The  soul 
having  vision  cannot  in  this  sense  be 
selfish.  Even  if  it  willed  itself,  it  yet 
could  will  only  the  lordship  of  the 
ideal;  for  it  has  made  itself  into  this 
very  ideal.  It  can  no  longer  will  the 
ends  of  the  lower  nature,  for  it  has  no 
longer  aught  in  common  with  this  lower 
nature.  To  act  in  conformity  with  moral 
ideals  implies  for  the  soul  which  has 
vision,  no  compulsion,  no  deprivation. 

"The  man  who  standeth  in  God's  will 
and  in  God's  love,  to  him  it  is  a  craving 


MEISTER  ECKHART  79 

to  do  all  good  things  that  God  willeth, 
and  leave  undone  all  evil  things  that 
are  contrary  to  God.  And  it  is  impos- 
sible for  him  to  leave  undone  anything 
that  God  will  have  done.  Even  as 
walking  is  impossible  to  one  whose  legs 
are  bound,  just  so  it  would  be  impossible 
for  a  man  who  standeth  in  God's  will  to 
do  aught  unvirtuous." 

Eckhart  moreover  expressly  guards 
himself  against  the  idea  that,  with  this 
view  of  his,  free  license  is  given  for  any- 
thing and  everything  that  the  individual 
may  will.  The  man  possessing  vision 
is  indeed  to  be  recognised  by  the  very 
fact  that  as  a  separated  individual  he 
no  longer  wills  anything.  **  Certain  men 
say:  If  I  have  God  and  God's  freedom, 
then  I  may  just  do  whatever  I  please. 
Such  understand  wrongly  this  saying.  So 
long  as  thou  canst  do  aught  that  is  con- 


8o     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

trary  to  God  and  His  commandment,  so 
long  thou  hast  not  God's  love;  even 
though  thou  mayest  well  deceive  the 
world,  as  if  thou  hadst."  Eckhart  is 
convinced  that  to  the  soul  which  dives 
down  into  its  own  root,  the  most  per- 
fect morality  will  shine  forth  from  that 
root  to  meet  it ;  that  there  all  logical  con- 
ception, and  all  acting  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  ceases,  and  an  entirely  new  order- 
ing of  human  life  makes  its  appearance. 

"For  all  that  the  understanding  can 
grasp,  and  all  that  desiring  can  desire, 
is  verily  not  God.  Where  understanding 
and  desiring  end,  there  it  is  dark,  there 
shineth  God.  There  that  power  unfolds 
in  the  soul  which  is  wider  than  the  wide 
heavens.  .  .  .  The  bliss  of  the  righteous 
and  the  bliss  of  God  is  one  bliss ;  for  there 
is  the  righteous  full  of  bliss,  where  God 
is  full  of  bliss.'* 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD 

In  Johannes  Tauler  ( 1 300-1 36 i),Heinrich 
Suso  ( 1 295-1 365),  and  Johannes  Ruys- 
broeck  (1293--1381),  one  makes  acquaint- 
ance with  men  whose  Hfe  and  work 
exhibit  in  a  very  striking  manner  those 
''motions  of  the  soul"  to  which  such  a 
spiritual  path  as  that  of  Meister  Eck- 
hart  is  calculated  to  give  rise  in  natures 
of  depth  and  power.  While  Eckhart 
seems  like  a  man  who,  in  the  blissful 
experiencing  of  spiritual  re-birth,  speaks 
of  the  nature  of  Knowledge  as  of  a 
picture  which  he  has  succeeded  in  paint- 
ing; these  others,  followers  of  his,  appear 
rather  like  pilgrims,  to  whom  their  inner 

re-birth  has  shown  a  new  road  which  they 
6  81 


82     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

fain  would  tread,  but  whose  goal  seems 
to  vanish  before  them  into  the  illimitable 
distance.  Eckhart  dwells  more  upon  the 
glories  of  his  picture;  they  upon  the 
difficulties  of  the  new  path. 

To  understand  the  difference  between 
personalities  like  Eckhart  and  Tauler, 
one  must  see  quite  clearly  how  a  man 
stands  towards  his  higher  cognitions. 
Man  is  interwoven  with  the  sense- world 
and  the  laws  of  nature  by  which  that 
sense-world  is  ruled.  He  is  himself  a 
product  of  that  world.  He  lives  because 
its  forces  and  its  materials  are  at  work 
in  him;  nay,  he  perceives  this  sense- 
world  and  judges  of  it  by  laws,  according 
to  which  both  he  himself  and  that  world 
are  alike  built  up.  If  he  turns  his  eyes 
upon  an  object,  not  only  does  the  object, 
present  itself  to  him  as  a  complex  of 
interacting  forces,  ruled  by  nature's  laws, 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  83 

but  the  eye,  with  which  he  sees  the  object 
is  itself  a  body  built  up  according  to  just 
such  laws  and  of  just  such  forces ;  and  the 
seeing,  too,  takes  place  by  similar  laws 
and  forces.  If  we  had  reached  the  goal 
of  natural  science,  we  should  be  able  to 
follow  out  this  play  of  the  forces  of  nature 
according  to  natural  laws  right  up  into 
the  highest  regions  of  thought -format  ion, 
— but  in  the  very  act  of  doing  this,  we 
raise  ourselves  above  this  play  of  forces. 
For  do  we  not  stand  above  and  beyond 
all  the  "uniformities  which  make  up  the 
laws  of  nature,"  when  we  over-see  the 
whole  and  recognise  how  we  ourselves 
fit  into  nature?  We  see  with  our  eyes 
according  to  laws  of  nature.  But  we 
know  also  the  laws,  according  to  which 
we  see. 

We  can  take  our  stand  upon  a  higher 
siimmit    and     overlook    at    once    both 


84     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ourselves  and  the  outer  world  in  their 
mutual  interplay.  Is  there  not  here 
a  something  working  in  us,  which  is 
higher  than  the  sensuous-organic  per- 
sonality working  with  Nature's  forces 
and  according  to  Nature's  laws?  In 
such  activity  does  there  still  remain  any 
wall  of  division  between  our  inner  selves 
and  the  outer  world?  That  which  here 
judges  and  gains  for  itself  insight  is  no 
longer  our  separated  personality;  it  is 
rather  the  general  world -being,  which 
has  torn  down  the  barrier  between  the 
inner  and  outer  worlds  and  now  embraces 
both  alike.  As  true  as  it  is  that,  judged 
by  the  outer  appearance,  I  still  remain 
the  same  separated  individual  when  I 
have  thus  torn  down  this  barrier,  so  true 
is  it  also  that,  judged  according  to  es- 
sential being,  I  am  no  longer  this  sep- 
arated unit.     Henceforth   there  lives  in 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  85 

me  the  feeling  that  there  speaks  in  my 
soul  the  All -Being,  which  embraces  both 
myself  and  the  entire  world. 

This  is  what  Tauler  felt,  when  he 
said:  ''Man  is  just  as  if  he  were  three 
men^ — his  animal  man  as  he  is  according 
to  the  senses;  then  his  rational  man  and 
lastly,  his  highest,  godlike  man.  .  .  . 
The  one  is  the  outer,  animal,  sensuous 
man ;  the  other  is  the  inner,  understanding 
man,  with  his  understanding  and  rea- 
soning powers;  the  third  man  is  spirit, 
(Gemilth — lit.  emotional,  feeling  nature), 
the  very  highest  part  of  the  soul." ^  How 
far  this  third  man  is  above  the  first  and 
second,  Eckhart  has  expressed  in  the 
words:  ''The  eye  through  which  I  see 
God,  that  is  the  same  eye  with  which  God 
sees  me.     My  eye  and  God's  eye,  that 

'  Cp.  W.  Preger:  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Mystik,  vol.  iii, 
p.  161. 


86     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

is  one   eye   and   one   knowing  and  one 
feeling." 

But  in  Tauler  another  feeling  is  active 
as  well  as  this.  He  has  fought  his  way 
through  to  a  real  vision  of  the  spiritual, 
and  does  not  constantly  confuse,  as 
do  the  false  materialists  and  the  false 
idealists,  the  sensibly-natural  with  the 
spiritual.  If,  with  his  disposition,  Tauler 
had  become  a  scientist,  he  would  have 
insisted  upon  explaining  all  that  is 
natural,  including  the  whole  of  man,  both 
the  first  and  the  second,  purely  upon 
natural  lines.  He  would  never  have 
transferred  purely  spiritual  forces  into 
nature  itself.  He  would  never  have 
talked  of  a  "  purposef ulness "  in  nature 
conceived  of  according  to  men's  notions. 
He  knew  that  there,  where  we  perceive 
with  our  senses,  no  "creative  ideas'* 
are  to  be  found.     Far  rather  he  was  most 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  87 

keenly  conscious  of  the  fact  that  man  is 
a  purely  natural  being.  And  as  he  felt 
himself  to  be,  not  a  scientist,  but  a  de- 
votee of  moral  life,  he  therefore  felt  most 
keenly  the  contrast  which  reveals  itself 
between  this  natural  being  of  man  and 
that  vision  of  God  which  arises  naturally 
and  within  nature,  but  as  spirituality. 
And  just  in  that  very  contrast  the  mean- 
ing of  life  presented  itself  to  his  eyes. 
Man  finds  himself  as  a  single  being,  a 
creature  of  nature.  And  no  science  can 
reveal  to  him  anything  else  about  this 
life  than  that  he  is  such  a  creature  of 
nature.  As  a  creature  of  nature  he 
cannot  get  outside  of  the  sphere  of 
natural  creation.  In  it  he  must  remain. 
And  yet  his  inner  life  leads  him  outside 
and  beyond  it.  He  must  have  confi- 
dence in  that  which  no  science  of  outer 
nature  can  give  him  or  show  to  him. 


88     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

If  he  calls  only  this  nature  Being  or 
'Hhat  which  is,"  then  he  must  be  able 
to  reach  out  to  the  vision  which  re- 
cognises as  the  higher,  Non-being,  or 
''that  which  is  not.**  Tauler  seeks  for 
no  God  who  is  present  in  the  same  sense 
as  a  natural  force;  he  seeks  no  God  who 
has  created  the  world  in  the  sense  of 
human  creation.  In  him  lives  the  clear 
insight  that  the  conception  of  creation 
even  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  is  only 
idealised  human  creating.  It  is  clear  to 
him  that  God  is  not  to  be  found  as 
nature's  working  and  her  laws  are  found, 
by  science.  Tauler  is  well  aware  that 
we  must  not  add  in  thought  anything  to 
nature  as  God.  He  knows  that  whoever 
thinks  God,  in  his  sense,  no  longer  thinks 
thought-content,  as  does  one  who  has 
grasped  nature  in  thought.  Therefore, 
Tauler  seeks  not  to  think  God,  but  to 


THE  FRIENSDHIP  OF  GOD  89 

think  divinely,  to  think  as  God  thinks. 
The  knowledge  of  nature  is  not  enriched 
by  the  knowledge  of  God,  but  transformed. 
The  knower  of  God  does  not  know  a 
different  thing  from  the  knower  of  nature, 
but  he  knows  in  a  different  way.  Not 
one  single  letter  can  the  knower  of  God 
add  to  the  knowledge  of  nature;  but 
through  his  whole  knowing  of  nature 
there  shines  a  new  light. 

What  root-feelings  will  take  possession 
of  a  man's  soul  who  contemplates  the 
world  from  this  point  of  view,  will  depend 
upon  how  he  regards  that  experience 
of  the  soul  which  brings  about  spiritual 
re-birth.  Within  this  experience,  man 
is  wholly  a  natural  being,  when  he  con- 
siders himself  in  his  interaction  with 
the  rest  of  nature;  and  he  is  wholly  a 
spiritual  being  when  he  considers  the 
conditions  into  which  this  re-birth  has 


90     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

brought  him.  Thus  we  can  say  with 
equal  truth,  the  inmost  depth  of  the 
soul  is  still  natural;  as  also  it  is  already 
divine.  Tauler  emphasised  the  former 
in  accordance  with  his  own  tendency  of 
thought.  However  far  we  may  penetrate 
into  our  souls,  we  still  remain  separated 
individual  htiman  beings,  said  he  to  him- 
self. But  yet  in  the  very  depths  of  the 
soul  of  the  individual  being  there  gleams 
forth  the  All-Being. 

Tauler  was  dominated  by  the  feeling: 
Thou  canst  not  free  thyself  from  separate- 
ness,  nor  purify  thyself  from  it.  There- 
fore the  All-Being  in  its  purity  can  never 
make  its  appearance  within  thee,  it  can 
only  shed  its  light  into  the  depths  of  thy 
soul.  Thus  in  its  depths  only  a  mere 
reflection,  a  picture  of  the  All-Being 
comes  into  existence.  Thou  canst  so 
transform  thy  separated  personality  that 


\ 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  91 

it  reproduces  the  All-Being  as  a  picture; 
but  this  All-Being  itself  does  not  shine 
forth  in  thee.     Starting  from  such  con- 
ceptions, Tauler  came  to  the  idea  of  a 
Godhead  that  never  merges  wholly  into 
the  himian  world,  never  flows  quite  com- 
pletely into  it.     More,  he  attaches  im- 
portance to  his  not  being  confused  with 
those  who  maintain  that  man's  inmost 
being  is   itself  divine.     He  says:   ''The 
Union  with  God  is  taken  by  fooHsh  men 
in  a  fleshly  sense,  and  they  say  that  they 
shall  be  transformed  into  divine  nature ; 
but  such  is  false  and  an  evil  heresy.     For 
even  in  the  very  highest,   most  inward 
Union  with  God,  God's  nature  and  God's 
being  still  remain  lofty,  yea,  higher  than 
the  loftiest;  that  passeth  into  a  divine 
abyss,  where  never  yet  was  creature." 

Tauler  wishes,  and  rightly,  to  be  called 
a  good  Catholic  in  the  sense  of  his  age 


y 


92     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  of  his  priestly  calling.  He  has  no 
desire  to  oppose  any  other  conception  to 
Christianity.  He  desires  only  to  deepen 
and  spiritualise  that  Christianity  through 
his  way  of  looking  at  it.  He  speaks  as 
a  pious  priest  of  the  content  of  Holy  Writ. 
But  this  same  scripture  still  becomes  in 
the  world  of  his  conceptions  a  means  for 
the  expression  of  the  inmost  experiences 
of  his  soul.  "God  worketh  all  his  works 
in  the  soul  and  giveth  them  to  the  soul; 
and  the  Father  begetteth  His  only  begotten 
Son  in  the  soul,  as  truly  as  He  begetteth 
Him  in  eternity,  neither  more,  nor  less. 
What  is  born  when  one  says:  God 
begetteth  in  the  soul?  Is  it  a  likeness 
of  God,  or  a  picture  of  God,  or  is  it  some- 
what of  God?  Nay:  it  is  neither  picture 
nor  likeness  of  God,  but  the  same  God 
and  the  same  Son  whom  the  Father  be- 
getteth in  eternity  and  naught  else  than 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  93 

the  blissful  divine  word,  that  is  the  second 
person  in  the  Trinity,  Him  the  Father 
begetteth  in  the  soul,  .  .  .  and  thereof 
the  soul  hath  thus  great  and  special 
dignity."'  The  stories  of  scripture  be- 
come for  Tauler  the  garment  in  which  he 
clothes  the  happiness  of  the  inner  life. 
''Herod,  who  drove  out  the  child  and 
sought  to  slay  him,  is  a  likeness  of  the 
world,  which  yet  seeketh  to  kill  this 
child  in  a  believing  man,  therefore  one 
should  and  must  flee  therefrom,  if  we  do 
desire  to  keep  that  child  alive  in  us,  but 
that  child  is  the  enlightened  believing  soul 
of  each  and  every  man.'* 

As  Tauler  directs  his  gaze  mainly  upon 
the  natural  man,  he  is  comparatively  less 
concerned  to  tell  us  what  happens  when 
the  higher  man  enters  into  the  natural 

^Cp.  Preger:  History  of  German  Mysticism,  vol.  iii.. 
p.  219  e^  seg_. 


94     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

man,  than  to  discover  the  paths  which 
the  lower  forces  of  the  personaHty  must 
follow  if  they  are  to  be  transmuted  into 
the  higher  life.  As  a  devotee  of  the 
moral  life,  he  desires  to  show  to  men  the 
roads  to  the  All-Being.  He  has  uncon- 
ditional faith  and  trust  that  the  All-Being 
shines  forth  in  man,  if  man  will  so  order 
his  life  that  there  shall  be  in  him  a  shrine 
for  the  Divine.  But  this  All-Being  can 
never  shine  forth  while  man  shuts  him- 
self up  in  his  mere  natural  separated 
personality.  Such  a  man,  separated  off 
in  himself,  is  merely  one  member  of  the 
world:  a  single  creature,  in  Tauler's 
language.  The  more  man  shuts  himself 
off  within  this  his  being  as  a  member  of 
the  world,  so  much  the  less  can  the  All- 
Being  find  place  in  him.  ''If  man  is  in 
reality  to  become  one  with  God,  then  all 
energies  and  powers  even  of  the  inner 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  95 

man  must  die  and  become  silent.  The 
will  must  turn  away  even  from  the  Good 
and  from  all  willing,  and  become  void 
of  willing."  "Man  must  escape  from 
all  his  senses  and  turn  inwards  all  his 
powers,  and  come  into  a  forgetting  of  all 
things  and  of  himself."  "For  the  true 
and  eternal  Word  of  God  is  uttered  only 
in  the  desert,  when  the  man  hath  gone 
out  from  himself  and  from  all  things 
and  is  quite  untrammelled,  desolate  and 
alone." 

When  Tauler  stood  at  his  zenith,  the 
problem  which  occupied  the  central  point 
of  his  mental  life  was:  How  can  man 
overcome  and  kill  out  in  himself  his 
separated  existence,  so  as  to  live  in  per- 
fect unison  with  the  All-life?  For  one 
in  this  position,  all  feelings  towards  the 
All-Being  concentrate  themselves  into 
this    one    thing:     Awe    before    the    All- 


96     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Being   as   that    which    is   inexhaustible, 
endless.     He  says  to  himself:  whatever 
level   thou   hast  reached,    there   remain 
still  higher  perspectives,  still  more  exalted 
possibilities.     Thus  clear  and  defined  as 
is  to  him  the  direction  in  which  he  has 
to  turn  his  steps,  it  is  equally  clear  to 
him  that  he  can  never  speak  of  a  goal: 
for  a  new  goal  is  only  the  beginning  of  a 
new   path.     Through   such   a  new  goal 
man  reaches  a  certain  level  of  evolution: 
but    evolution   itself    continues    inimit- 
ably.    And    what    that    evolution    may 
attain  upon  some  more  distant  level,  it 
can  never  know  upon  its  present  stage. 
There  is  no  knowing  the  final  goal:  only 
a  trusting   in  the  path,  in  evolution  it- 
self.    There  is  knowing  for  everything 
which    man    has    already    attained.     It 
consists  in  the  penetration  of  an  already 
present    object    by    the    powers    of    our 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  97 

spirit.  For  the  higher  hfe  of  man's 
inner  being,  there  is  no  such  knowing. 
Here  the  powers  of  our  spirit  must  first 
transfer  the  object  itself  into  the  realm 
of  the  existent;  they  must  first  create 
for  it  an  existence,  constituted  as  is 
natural  existence. 

Natural  Science  follows  the  evolution 
of  beings  from  the  simplest  up  to  the 
most  perfected,  to  man  himself.  This 
evolution  lies  before  us  as  already  com- 
pleted. We  know  it,  by  penetrating 
it  with  the  powers  of  our  spirit.  When 
evolution  has  reached  humanity,  man 
then  finds  nothing  further  there  before 
him  as  its  continuation.  He  himself 
accomplishes  the  further  unfoldment. 
Henceforward  he  lives  what  for  earlier 
stages  he  only  knows.  He  creates,  ac- 
cording to  the  object,  that  which,  for 
what  has   gone   before,   he   only   copies 


98     MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

in  accordance  with  its  spiritual  nature. 
That  truth  is  not  one  with  the  existent 
in  nature,  but  naturally  embraces  both 
the  existent  and  the  non-existent:  of  this 
truth  Tauler  is  filled  to  overflowing  in 
all  his  feelings.  It  has  been  handed 
down  to  us  that  Tauler  was  led  to  this 
fulfilling  by  an  illuminated  layman,  a 
** Friend  of  God  from  the  Mountains." 
We  have  here  a  mysterious  story. 
As  to  where  this  ''Friend  of  God"  lived 
there  exist  only  conjectures;  as  to  who 
he  was,  not  even  these.  He  seems  to 
have  heard  much  of  Tauler 's  way  of 
preaching,  and  to  have  resolved  accord- 
ingly to  journey  to  Tauler,  who  was 
then  working  as  a  preacher  in  Strass- 
burg,  in  order  to  fulfil  a  certain  duty 
by  him.  Tauler's  relation  to  the  Friend 
of  God,  and  the  influence  which  the 
latter  exercised  upon  the  former,  are  to 


THE  FRIENSDHIP  OF  GOD  99 

be  found  described  in  a  text  which  is 
printed  along  with  the  oldest  editions 
of  Tauler's  sermons  under  the  title, 
''The  Book  of  the  Master."  Therein 
a  Friend  of  God,  in  whom  some  seek  to 
recognise  the  same  who  came  into  re- 
lations with  Tauler,  gives  an  account  of 
a  "  Master,"  whom  some  assert  to  be  Tau- 
ler himself.  He  relates  how  a  transfor- 
mation, a  spiritual  re-birth,  was  brought 
about  in  a  certain  *' Master"  and  how  the 
latter,  when  he  felt  his  death  drawing 
near,  called  his  friend  to  him  and  begged 
him  to  write  the  story  of  his  ''enlight- 
enment," but  yet  to  take  care  that  no 
one  should  ever  learn  of  whom  the  book 
speaks.  He  asks  this  on  the  ground 
that  all  the  knowledge  that  proceeds 
from  him  is  yet  not  really  from  him. 
"For  know  ye  that  God  hath  brought 
all  to  pass  through  me,  poor  worm,  and 


100  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

that  what  it  is,  is  not  mine,  it  is  of 
God." 

A  learned  controversy  which  has  con- 
nected itself  with  the  occurrence  is 
not  of  the  very  smallest  importance  for 
the  essence  of  the  matter.  An  effort 
was  made  to  prove  on  one  side^  that  the 
Friend  of  God  never  existed,  but  that 
his  existence  was  fiction  and  that  the 
books  ascribed  to  him  come  from  an- 
other hand  (Rulman  Merswin).  On  the 
other  hand  Wilhelm  Preger  has  sought 
with  many  arguments  (in  his  History  of 
German  Mysticism)  to  support  the  exist- 
ence, the  genuineness  of  the  writings,  and 
the  correctness  of  the  facts  that  relate 
to  Tauler. 

I  am  here  under  no  obligation  to  throw 
light  by  presumptuous  investigation  upon 
a  relationship  as  to  which  any  one,  who 

^Denifle:  Die  Dictungen  des  GoUesjreu7ides  itn  Oherlande. 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  loi 

understands  how  to  read  the  writings^ 
in  question,  will  know  that  it  should 
remain  a   secret. 

If  one  says  of  Tauler,  that  at  a  certain 
stage  of  his  life  a  transformation  took 
place  in  him,  that  will  be  amply  sufficient. 
Tauler 's  personality  need  no  longer  be 
in  any  way  considered  in  this  connec- 
tion, but  only  a  personality  "in  general." 
As  regards  Tauler,  we  are  only  concerned 
with  the  fact  that  we  must  understand 
his  transformation  from  the  point  of 
view  set  forth  in  what  follows.  If  we 
compare  his  later  activity  with  his  earlier, 
the  fact  of  this  transformation  is  obvious 
without    further    search.     I    will    leave 

'  The  writings  in  question  are,  among  others :  Von  eime 
eigenwilligen  weltwisen  manne,  der  von  eime  heiligen  welt- 
priestere  gewiset  wart  life  demuetige  gehorsamme,  1338;  Das 
Buck  von  den  zwei  Mannen;  Der  gefangene  Ritter,  1349; 
Die  geistliche  stege,  1350;  Von  der  geistlicJien  Letter,  1357; 
Das  Meisterbuch,  1369;  Geschichte  von  zwei  fimfzehnjahz- 
igen  Knaben. 


102  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

aside  all  outer  circumstances  and  relate 
the  inner  occurrences  in  the  soul  of  the 
''Master"  under  **the  influence  of  the 
layman."  What  my  reader  will 
understand  by  the  "layman"  and  the 
''Master"  depends  entirely  upon  his  own 
mentality;  what  I  myself  think  about 
it  is  a  matter  as  to  which  I  cannot  know 
for  whom  it  is  of  any  weight. 

A  Master  is  instructing  his  disciples 
as  to  the  relationship  of  the  soul  to 
the  All-Being  of  things.  He  speaks  of  the 
fact  that  when  man  plunges  into 
the  abysmal  depths  of  his  soul,  he  no 
longer  feels  the  natural,  limited  forces  of 
the  separated  personality  working  within 
him.  Therein  the  separated  man  no 
longer  speaks,  therein  speaks  God.  There 
man  does  not  see  God,  or  the  world;  there 
God  sees  Himself.  Man  has  become  one 
with  God.     But  the  Master  knows  that 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  103 

this  teaching  has  not  yet  awakened  to 
full  life  in  him.  He  thinks  it  with  his 
understanding:  but  he  does  not  yet  live 
in  it  with  every  fibre  of  his  personality. 
He  is  thus  teaching  about  a  state  of 
things  which  he  has  not  yet  completely 
lived  through  in  himself.  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  condition  corresponds  to  the 
truth;  yet  this  truth  has  no  value  if 
it  does  not  gain  life,  if  it  does  not 
bring  itself  forth  in  reality  as  actually 
existent. 

The  ''layman**  or  ''Friend  of  God** 
hears  of  the  Master  and  his  teachings. 
He  is  no  less  saturated  with  the  truth 
which  the  Master  utters  than  the  Master 
himself.  But  he  possesses  this  truth 
not  as  a  matter  of  the  understanding; 
he  has  it  as  the  whole  force  of  his  life. 
He  knows  that  when  this  truth  has  come 
to  a  man  from  outside,  he  can  himself 


I04  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

give  utterance  to  it,  without  even  in  the 
least  living  in  accordance  with  it.  But 
in  that  case  he  has  nothing  other  in  him 
than  the  natural  knowledge  of  the  un- 
derstanding. He  then  speaks  of  this 
natural  knowledge  as  if  it  were  the 
highest,  equivalent  to  the  working  of 
the  All-Being.  It  is  not  so,  because  it 
has  not  been  acquired  in  a  life  that  has 
approached  to  this  knowledge  as  a  trans- 
formed, a  reborn  life.  What  one  ac- 
quires only  as  a  natural  man,  that 
remains  only  natural, — even  when 
one  afterwards  expresses  in  words  the 
fundamental  characteristic  of  the  higher 
knowledge.  Outwards,  from  within  the 
very  nature  itself,  must  the  transform- 
ation  be   accomplished. 

Nature,  which  by  living  has  evolved 
itself  to  a  certain  level,  must  evolve 
further  through  life ;  something  new  must 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         105 

come  into  existence  through  this  ftirther 
evolution.     Man    must    not    only    look 
backwards    upon    the    evolution    which 
already   lies  behind  him — claim  as  the 
highest    that    which    shapes    itself    ac- 
cording   thereto    in    his    spirit — but   he 
must  look  forward  upon  the  uncreate: 
his  knowledge  must  be  a  beginning  of  a 
new  content,  not  an  end  to  the  content 
of  evolution  which  already  lies  before 
it.     Nature  advances  from  the  worm  to 
the  mammal,  from  the  mammal  to  man, 
not  in  a  conceptual  but  in  an  actual, 
real  process.     Man  has   to  repeat  this 
process   not    in    his    mind   alone.     The 
mental  repetition  is  only  the  beginning 
of  a  fresh,  real  evolution,  which,  however, 
despite  its  being  spiritual,  is  real.     Man, 
then,  does  not  merely  know  what  nature 
has  produced;  he  continues  nature;  he 
translates  his  knowledge  into  living  ac- 


io6  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

tion.  He  gives  birth  within  himself  to 
the  spirit,  and  this  spirit  advances  thence 
onwards  from  level  to  level  of  evolution, 
as  nature  itself  advances.  Spirit  begins 
a  natural  process  upon  a  higher  level. 

The  talk  about  the  God  who  contem- 
plates Himself  in  man's  inner  being,  takes 
on  a  different  character  in  one  who  has 
recognised  this.  He  attaches  little  im- 
portance to  the  fact  that  an  insight 
already  attained  has  led  him  into  the 
depths  of  the  All-Being;  instead,  his 
spiritual  nature  acquires  a  new  charac- 
ter. It  unfolds  itself  further  in  the 
direction  determined  by  the  All-Being. 
Such  a  man  not  only  looks  at  the  world 
differently  from  one  who  merely  under- 
stands: he  lives  his  life  otherwise.  He 
does  not  talk  of  the  meaning  which  life 
already  has  through  the  forces  and  laws 
of  the  world:  but  he  gives  anew  a  fresh 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         107 

meaning  to  his  life.  As  little  as  the  fish 
already  has  in  itself  what  makes  its 
appearance  on  a  later  level  of  evolution 
as  the  mammal,  as  little  has  the  under- 
standing man  already  in  himself  what 
shall  be  born  from  him  as  the  higher 
man.  If  the  fish  could  know  itself  and 
the  things  around  it,  it  would  regard 
the  being-a-fish  as  the  meaning  of  life. 
It  would  say:  the  All-Being  is  like  the 
fish:  in  the  fish  the  All-Being  beholds 
itself.  Thus  would  the  fish  speak  as 
long  as  it  remained  constant  to  its  under- 
standing kind  of  knowledge.  In  reality 
it  does  not  remain  constant  thereto. 
It  reaches  out  beyond  its  knowledge 
with  its  activity.  It  becomes  a  reptile 
and  later  a  mammal.  The  meaning 
which  it  gives  to  itself  in  reality  reaches 
out  beyond  the  meaning  which  mere 
contemplation    gives    to    it. 


io8  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

In  man  also  this  must  be  so.  He 
gives  himself  a  meaning  in  reality;  he 
does  not  halt  and  stand  still  at  the 
meaning  he  already  has,  which  his 
contemplation  shows  him.  Knowledge 
leaps  out  beyond  itself,  if  only  it  under- 
stands itself  aright.  Knowledge  cannot 
deduce  the  world  from  a  ready-made 
God;  it  can  only  unfold  itself  from  a 
germ  in  the  direction  towards  a  God. 
The  man  who  has  understood  this  will 
not  regard  God  as  something  that  is  out- 
side of  him ;  he  will  deal  with  God  as  a  be- 
ing who  wanders  with  him  towards  a  goal, 
which  at  the  outset  is  just  as  unknown 
as  the  nature  of  the  mammal  is  unknown 
to  the  fish.  He  does  not  aim  to  be  the 
knower  of  the  hidden,  or  of  the  self -reveal- 
ing existent  God,  but  to  be  the  friend 
of  the  divine  doing  and  working,  which 
is  exalted  over  both  being  and  non-being. 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         109 

The  layman,  who  came  to  the  Master, 
was  a  "Friend  of  God"   in  this  sense, 
and   through    him    the   Master  became 
from   a   contemplator   of   the   being   of 
God,  one  who  is  ''alive  in  the  spirit,*' 
one   who   not    only    contemplated,    but 
lived  in  the  higher  sense.     The  Master 
now  no  longer  brought  forth  concepts 
and    ideas    of    the    understanding    from 
his  inner  nature,  but  these  concepts  and 
ideas   burst   forth   from   him   as   living, 
actuahsed  spirit.     He  no  longer  merely 
edified  his  hearers;  he  shook  the  very 
foundations    of    their    being.       He    no 
longer    plunged    their    souls    into    their 
inner  being;  he  led  them  into  a  new  life. 
This   is   recounted    to   us    symbolically: 
about    forty   people   fell   down   through 
his  preaching  and  lay  as  if  dead. 

H:  H<  * 


no  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

As  a  guide  to  such  a  new  life,  we 
possess  a  book  about  whose  author 
nothing  is  known.  Luther  first  made  it 
known  in  print.  The  philologist,  Franz 
Pfeiffer,  has  recently  printed  it  ac- 
cording to  a  manuscript  of  the  year 
1497,  with  a  modern  German  trans- 
lation facing  the  original  text.  What 
precedes  the  book  indicates  its  pur- 
pose and  its  goal:  "Here  begins  the 
man  from  Frankfurt  and  saith  many 
very  lofty  and  very  beautiful  things 
about  a  perfect  life."  Upon  this  follows 
the  ''Preface  about  the  man  from  Frank- 
furt": "Al-mighty,  Eternal  God  hath 
uttered  this  little  book  through  a  wise, 
understanding,  truthful,  righteous  man, 
his  friend,  who  in  former  days  was  a 
German  nobleman,  a  priest  and  a  custo- 
dian in  the  German  House  of  Nobles  at 
Frankfurt;   it   teacheth   many   a   lovely 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  1 1 1 

insight  into  Divine  Wisdom,  and  es- 
pecially how  and  whereby  one  may 
know  the  true,  righteous  friends  of  God, 
and  also  the  unrighteous,  false,  free- 
thinkers, who  are  very  hurtful  to  Holy 
Church." 

By  ''free-thinkers"  one  may  perhaps 
understand  those  who  live  in  a  merely 
conceptual  world,  like  the  "Master" 
described  above  before  his  transformation 
by  means  of  the  "Friend  of  God,"  and 
by  the  "true,  righteous  friends  of  God," 
such  as  possess  the  disposition  of  the 
"layman."  One  may  further  ascribe  to 
the  book  the  intention  of  so  working 
upon  its  readers  as  the  "Friend  of  God 
from  the  Mountains"  did  upon  the 
Master.  It  is  not  known  who  the 
author  was.  But  what  does  that  mean? 
It  is  not  known  when  he  was  born  and 
died,   or  what  he  did  in  his  outer  life. 


112  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

That  the  author  aimed  to  preserve 
eternal  secrecy  about  these  facts  of  his 
outer  life,  belongs  naturally  to  the  way 
in  which  he  desired  to  work.  It  is  not 
the  "I"  of  this  or  the  other  man,  born 
at  a  definite  point  of  time,  who  is  to 
speak  to  us,  but  the  "I-ness"  in  the 
depths  whereof  ''the  separateness  of  indi- 
vidualities** (in  the  sense  of  Paul  Asmus* 
saying 0  must  first  unfold  itself.  "If  God 
took  to  Himself  all  men  who  are  or  who 
have  ever  been,  and  became  man  in  them, 
and  they  became  God  in  Him,  and  it  did 
not  happen  to  me  also,  then  my  fall  and 
my  turning  away  would  never  be  made 
good,  unless  it  also  happened  in  me  too. 
And  in  this  restoration  and  making  good, 
I  neither  can  nor  may  nor  should  do  any- 
thing thereto  save  a  mere  pure  suffering, 
so  that  God  alone  doeth  and  worketh 

'  Vide  ante,  page  34. 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         113 

all  things  in  me,  and  I  suffer  Him  and 
all  His  works  and  His  divine  will.  But 
if  I  will  not  submit  to  this,  but  possess 
myself  with  egotism,  i.e.,  with  mine,  and 
I,  to  me,  for  me,  and  the  like,  that  hinders 
God  so  that  He  cannot  work  His  work  in 
me  purely  alone  and  without  hindrance. 
Therefore  my  fall  and  my  turning  away 
remain  thus  not  made  good."  The 
^'man  from  Frankfurt"  aims  to  speak 
not  as  a  separated  individual;  he  desires 
to  let  God  speak.  That  he  yet  can  do 
this  only  as  a  single,  distinct  personality 
he  naturally  knows  full  well;  but  he  is 
a  "Friend  of  God,"  that  means  a  man 
who  aims  not  at  presenting  the  nature 
of  life  through  contemplation,  but  at 
pointing  out  the  beginning  of  a  new 
evolutionary  pathway  through  the  living 
spirit. 

The    explanations    in    the    book    are 

8 


114  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

various  instructions  as  to  how  one  comes 
to  this  pathway.  The  root-thought 
X  returns  again  and  again:  man  must 
strip  off  everything  that  is  connected 
with  that  which  makes  him  appear  as  a 
single,  separate  personahty.  This  thought 
seems  to  be  worked  out  only  in  respect 
of  the  moral  life;  it  should  be  extended, 
without  further  ado,  to  the  higher  life 
of  knowledge  as  well.  One  must  anni- 
hilate in  oneself  whatever  appears  as 
separateness :  then  separated  existence 
ceases;  the  All-Life  enters  into  us.  We 
cannot  master  this  All-Life  by  drawing 
it  towards  us.  It  comes  into  us,  when 
we  reduce  the  separateness  in  us  to 
silence.  We  have  the  All-Life  least  of 
all  just  then,  when  we  so  regard  our 
separated  existence  as  if  the  Whole 
already  dwelt  within  it.  This  first  comes 
to  light  in  the  separated  existence  when 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         115 

this  separated  existence  no  longer  claims 
for  itself  to  be  anything.  This  preten- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  separated  existence 
our  text  terms  ''assumption." 

Through  ' '  asstmiption  "  the  self  makes 
it  impossible  for  itself  that  the  Uni- 
versal Self  should  enter  into  it.  The 
self  then  puts  itself  as  a  part,  as  some- 
thing imperfect,  in  the  place  of  the  whole, 
of  the  perfect.  "The  perfect  is  a  being, 
that  in  itself  and  in  its  being  has  conceived 
and  resolved  all  beings,  and  without 
which  and  apart  from  which  there  is  no 
true  being,  and  in  which  all  things  have 
their  being;  for  it  is  the  being  of  all 
things  and  is  in  itself  unchangeable  and 
immovable,  and  changes  and  moves  all 
other  things.  But  the  divided  and  the 
imperfect  is  that  which  has  sprung  from 
out  of  this  perfect,  or  becomes,  just  as  a 
ray  or  a  light  that  flows  forth  from  the 


ii6  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

sun  or  a  light  and  shines  upon  something, 
this   or   that.     And   that   is   called   the 
creature,  and  of  all  these  divided  things 
none  is  the  perfect.     Therefore  also  is 
the   perfect   none   of   the   divided.  .  .  . 
When  the  perfect  cometh,  the  divided  is 
despised.      But  when  does  it  come?      I 
say:   When   so  far  as    is   possible  it  is 
known,  felt,  tasted  in  the  soul;  for  the 
defect  lies  wholly  in  us  and  not  in  it. 
For    just    as    the    sun    illuminates    the 
whole  world  and  is  just  as  near  to  the 
one  as  to  the  other,  yet  a  blind  man  sees 
it  not.     But  that  is  no  defect  of  the  sun 
but  of  the  blind  man.  ...     If  my  eye 
is    to    see    anything,    it    must    become 
cleansed,  or  be  already  cleansed  from  all 
other  things.  .  .  .     Now  one  might  be 
inclined  to  say:  In  so  far  then  as  it  is 
unknowable    and    inconceivable    for    all 
creatures,  and  since  the  soul  is  also  a 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  117 

creature,  how  can  it  then  be  known  in 
the  soul?  Answer:  Therefore  is  it  said, 
the  creature  shall  be  known  as  a  creature.'" 
This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  all 
creatures  shall  be  regarded  as  created 
and  creation  and  not  regard  themselves 
as  I-ness  and  self-ness,  whereby  this 
knowing  is  made  impossible.  ''For  in 
whatever  creature  this  perfect  one  shall 
be  known,  there  all  creature-being,  cre- 
ated-being,  I-ness,  self-ness,  and  every- 
thing of  the  kind  must  be  lost,  be  and 
become  naught."'  The  soul  must  there- 
fore look  within  itself;  there  it  finds 
its  I-ness,  its  self-ness.  If  it  remains 
standing  there,  it  thereby  cuts  itself  off 
from  the  perfect.  If  it  regards  its  I-ness 
only  as  a  thing  lent  to  it  as  it  were,  and 
annihilates  it  in  spirit,  it  will  be  seized 
upon  by  the  stream  of  the  All-Life,  of 

^  Chap,  i.,  Book  oj  the  Man  from  Frankfurt. 


Ii8    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Perfection.  ''When  the  creature  as- 
sumes to  itself  somewhat  of  good,  as 
Being,  Life,  Knowledge,  Power,  in  short, 
aught  of  that  which  one  calls  good  and 
thinks  that  it  is  that,  or  that  it  belongs 
to  it  or  comes  from  it,  so  often  and  so 
much  as  that  happens,  does  the  creature 
turn  away.'*  "The  created  soul  of  man 
has  two  eyes.  The  one  is  the  possibiUty 
of  seeing  in  eternity;  the  other  of  seeing 
in  time  and  in  creation.''  "Man  should 
therefore  stand  and  be  quite  free  without 
himself,  that  is  without  self-ness,  I-ness, 
me,  mine,  for  me  and  the  like,  so  that 
he  as  little  seeks  and  thinks  of  himself 
and  what  is  his  in  all  things  as  if  it  did 
not  exist;  and  he  should  therefore  also 
think  little  of  himself,  as  if  he  were  not, 
and  as  if  another  had  done  all  his 
deeds."' 

'  Chap.  XV.,  Book  of  the  Man  from  Frankfurt. 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  1 19 

One  must  also  take  account  of  the 
fact  in  regard  to  the  writer  of  these 
sentences,  that  the  thought-content, 
to  which  he  gives  a  direction  by  his 
higher  ideas  and  feehngs,  is  that  of  a 
believing  priest  in  the  spirit  of  his  own 
time.  We  are  here  concerned  not  with 
the  thought-content,  but  with  the  di- 
rection, not  with  the  thoughts  but  with 
the  way  of  thinking.  Any  one  who  does 
not  live  as  he  does  in  Christian  dogmas, 
but  in  the  conceptions  of  natural  science, 
finds  in  his  sentences  other  thoughts; 
but  with  these  other  thoughts  he  points 
in  the  same  direction.  And  this  direc- 
tion is  that  which  leads  to  the  over- 
coming of  the  self -hood,  by  the  Self -hood 
itself.  The  highest  light  shines  for  man 
in  his  Ego.  But  this  light  only  then 
imparts  to  his  concept-world  the  right 
reflection,  when  he  becomes  aware  that 


I20    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

it  is  not  his  own  self-light,  but  the 
universal  world- light. 

Hence  there  is  no  more  important 
knowledge  than  self-knowledge ;  and  there 
is  equally  no  knowledge  which  leads  so 
completely  out  beyond  itself.  When  the 
''self"  knows  itself  aright,  it  is  already 
no  longer  a  "self."  In  his  own  language, 
the  writer  of  the  book  in  question  ex- 
presses this  as  follows:  "For  God's 
'own-ness'  is  void  of  this  and  that,  void 
of  self-ness  and  I-ness;  but  the  nature 
and  own-ness  of  the  creature  is  that  it 
seeketh  and  willeth  itself  and  its  own 
and  'this'  and  'that';  and  in  all  that 
it  does  or  leaves  undone,  it  seeketh  to 
receive  its  own  benefit  and  profit. 

"When,  now,  the  creature  or  the  man 
loseth  his  own-ness  and  his  self-ness  and 
himself,  and  goeth  out  from  himself,  then 
God  entereth  in  with  His  Own-ness,  that 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  121 

is  with  his  Self -hood ." '  Man  soars  up- 
wards, from  a  view  of  his  "Ego"  which 
makes  the  latter  appear  to  him  as  his 
very  being,  to  a  view  such  that  it 
shows  him  his  Ego  as  a  mere  organ,  in 
which  the  All-Being  works  upon  itself. 
In  the  concept-sphere  of  our  text,  this 
means:  '*If  man  can  attain  thereto  that 
he  belongeth  unto  God  just  as  a  man's 
hand  belongeth  to  him,  then  let  him  z' 
content  himself  and  seek  no  further."^ 
That  is  not  intended  to  mean  that 
when  man  has  reached  a  certain  stage 
of  his  evolution  he  shall  stand  still 
there,  but  that,  when  he  has  got  as  far 
as  is  indicated  in  the  above  words,  he 
should  not  set  on  foot  further  investiga- 
tions into  the  meaning  of  the  hand,  but 
rather  make  use  of  the  hand,  in  order 


/ 


^  Chap,  xxiv,  Book  of  the  Man  from  Frankfurt. 
^  Ibid.,  Chap.  liv. 


122  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

that  it  may  render  service  to  the  body 
to  which  it  belongs. 


Heinrich  Suso  and  Johannes  Ruys- 
BROEK  possessed  a  type  of  mind  which 
may  be  characterised  as  genius  for  feeHng. 
Their  feeHngs  are  drawn  by  something 
Hke  instinct  in  the  same  direction  in 
which  Eckhart's  and  Tauler's  feeHngs 
were  guided  by  their  higher  thought- 
Hfe.  Suso's  heart  turns  devoutly  towards 
that  Root-Being  which  embraces  the  in- 
dividual man  just  as  much  as  the  whole 
remaining  world,  and  in  whom  forgetting 
himself,  he  yearns  to  lose  himself  as  a 
drop  of  water  in  the  mighty  ocean.  He 
speaks  of  this  his  yearning  towards  the 
All-Being,  not  as  of  something  that  he 
desires  to  embrace  in  thought;  he  speaks 
of  it  as  a  natural  impulse,  that  makes 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         123 

his  soul  drunken  with  desire  for  the 
annihilation  of  its  separated  existence 
and  its  re-awakening  to  life  in  the  all- 
efficiency  of  the  endless  life.  ''Turn 
thine  eyes  to  this  being  in  its  ptire  naked 
simplicity,  so  that  thou  mayest  let  fall 
this  and  that  manifold  being.  Take 
being  in  itself  alone,  that  is  unmoved 
with  not-being;  for  all  not-being  denies 
all  being.  A  thing  that  is  yet  to  become, 
or  that  has  been,  is  not  now  in  actual 
presence.'* 

''Now,  one  cannot  know  mixed  being 
or  not-being  except  by  some  mark  of 
being  as  a  whole.  For  if  one  will  under- 
stand a  thing,  the  reason  first  encounters 
being,  and  that  is  a  being  that  worketh 
all  things.  It  is  a  divided  being  of  this 
or  that  creature, — for  divided  being  is 
all  mingled  with  something  of  other-ness, 
with  a  possibility  of  receiving  something. 


/ 


124  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENALSSANCE 

Therefore  the  nameless  divine  being 
must  so  be  a  whole  being  in  itself,  that 
it  sustaineth  all  divided  beings  by  its 
presence.'* 

Thus  speaks  Suso  in  the  autobiography 
which  he  wrote  in  conjunction  with  his 
pupil  Elsbet  Staglin.  He,  too,  is  a  pious 
priest  and  lives  entirely  in  the  Christian 
circle  of  thought.  He  lives  therein  as 
if  it  were  quite  unthinkable  that  anybody 
with  his  mental  tendency  could  live  in 
any  other  world.  But  of  him  also  it  is 
true  that  one  can  combine  another  con- 
cept-content with  his  mental  tendency. 
This  is  clearly  borne  out  by  the  way 
in  which  the  content  of  the  Christian 
teaching  has  become  for  him  actual 
inner  experience,  and  his  relation  to 
Christ  has  become  a  relation  between  his 
own  spirit  and  the  eternal  truth  in  a 
purely  ideal,  spiritual  way. 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         125 

He  composed  a  ''Little  Book  of  Eternal 
Wisdom.''  In  this  he  makes  the  "Eter- 
nal Wisdom"  speak  to  its  servant,  in 
other  words  to  himself:  "Knowest  thou 
me  not?  How  art  thou  so  cast  down,  or 
hast  thou  lost  consciousness  from  agony 
of  heart,  my  tender  child?  Behold  it 
is  I,  merciful  Wisdom,  who  have  opened 
wide  the  abyss  of  fathomless  compas- 
sion which  yet  is  hidden  from  all  the 
saints,  tenderly  to  receive  thee  and  all 
repentant  hearts;  it  is  I,  sweet  Eternal 
Wisdom,  who  was  there  poor  and  miser- 
able, so  as  to  bring  thee  to  thy  worthiness; 
it  is  I,  who  suffered  bitter  death,  that  I 
might  make  thee  to  live  again!  I  stand 
here  pale  and  bleeding  and  lovely,  as  I 
stood  on  the  lofty  gallows  of  the  cross 
between  the  stem  judgment  of  my  Father 
and  thee.  It  is  I,  thy  brother;  look,  it 
is  I,  thy  spouse!    I  have  therefore  wholly 


126  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

forgotten  all  thou  hast  done  against  me, 
as  if  it  had  never  been,  if  only  thou 
turnest  wholly  to  me  and  separatest  thy- 
self no  more  from  me.'* 

All  that  is  bodily  and  temporal  in  the 
Christian  conception  has  become  for 
Suso,  as  one  sees,  a  spiritual-ideal  process 
in  the  recesses  of  his  soul.  From  some 
chapters  of  Suso's  biography  mentioned 
above,  it  might  appear  as  if  he  had  let 
himself  be  guided  not  by  the  mere  action 
of  his  own  spiritual  power,  but  through 
external  revelations,  through  ghostly 
visions.  But  he  expresses  his  meaning 
quite  clearly  about  this.  One  attains 
to  the  truth  through  reasonableness, 
not  through  any  kind  of  revelation. 
''The  difference  between  pure  truth  and 
y  two-souled  visions  in  the  matter  of 
knowledge  I  will  also  tell  you.  An  im- 
mediate beholding  of  the  bare  Godhead, 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD         127 

that  Is  right  pure  truth,  without  all 
doubt;  and  every  vision,  so  that  it  be 
reasonable  and  without  pictures  and  the 
more  like  it  be  unto  that  bare  beholding, 
the  purer  and  nobler  it  is." 

Meister  Eckhart,  too,  leaves  no  doubt 
that  he  puts  aside  the  view  which  seeks 
to  be  spiritual  in  bodily-spacial  forms, 
in  appearances  which  one  can  perceive 
by  any  senses.  Minds  of  the  type  of 
Suso  and  Eckhart  are  thus  opponents  of 
such  a  view,  as  that  which  finds  express- 
ion in  the  spiritualism  which  has  devel- 
oped during  the  nineteenth  century. 


Johannes  Ruysbroek,  the  Belgian 
mystic,  trod  the  same  path  as  Suso.  His 
spiritual  way  found  an  active  opponent 
in  Johannes  Gerson  (born  1363),  who 
was   for   some   time    Chancellor   of   the 


128  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

University  of  Paris  and  played  a  mo- 
mentous role  at  the  Council  of  Constance. 
Some  light  is  thrown  upon  the  nature 
of  the  mysticism  which  was  practised  by 
Tauler,  Suso  and  Ruysbroek,  if  one 
compares  it  with  the  mystic  endeavours 
of  Gerson,  who  had  his  predecessors  in 
Richard  de  St.  Victor,  Bonaventura,  and 
others. 

Ruysbroek  himself  fought  against  those 
whom  he  reckoned  among  the  heretical 
mystics.  As  such  he  considered  all  those 
who,  through  an  easy-going  judgment  of 
the  understanding,  hold  that  all  things 
proceed  from  one  Root-Being,  who  there- 
fore see  in  the  world  only  a  manifoldness 
and  in  God  the  unity  of  this  manifoldness. 
Ruysbroek  does  not  count  himself  among 
these,  for  he  knew  that  one  cannot  attain 
to  the  Root-Being  by  the  contemplation 
of  things,  but  only  by  raising  oneself  from 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  129 

this  lower  mode  of  contemplation  to  a 
higher   one . 

Similarly,  he  turned  against  those  who 
seek  to  see  without  further  ado,  in  the 
individual  man,  in  his  separated  exist- 
ence (in  his  creature-being),  his  higher 
nature  also.  He  deplored  not  a  little 
the  error  which  confuses  all  differences 
in  the  sense- world,  and  asserts  light- 
mindedly  that  things  are  different  only 
in  appearance,  but  that  in  their  being 
they  are  all  alike.  This  would  amount, 
for  a  way  of  thinking  like  Ruysbroek's,  to 
the  same  thing  as  saying:  That  the 
fact  that  the  trees  in  an  avenue  seem  to 
our  seeing  to  come  together  does  not 
concern  us.  In  reality  they  are  every- 
where equally  far  apart,  therefore  our 
eyes  ought  to  accustom  themselves  to 
see  correctly.  But  our  eyes  see  aright. 
That    the    trees    run    together   depends 


130  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

upon  a  necessary  law  of  nature;  and  we 
have  nothing  to  reproach  our  seeing 
with,  but  on  the  contrary  to  recognise  in 
spirit  why  we  see  them  thus. 

Moreover,  the  mystic  does  not  turn 
away  from  the  things  of  the  senses.  As 
things  of  the  senses,  he  accepts  them  as 
they  are,  and  it  is  clear  to  him  that 
through  no  judgment  of  the  under- 
standing can  they  become  otherwise. 
But  in  spirit  he  passes  beyond  both 
senses  and  understanding,  and  then  only 
does  he  find  the  unity.  His  faith  is 
unshakable  that  he  can  develop  himself 
to  the  beholding  of  this  unity.  There- 
fore does  he  ascribe  to  the  nature  of 
man  the  divine  spark  which  can  be 
brought  to  shine  in  him,  to  shine  by 
its    own    light. 

People  of  the  type  of  Gerson  think 
otherwise.     They  do  not  beheve  in  this 


THE  FRIENDSHIP  OF  GOD  131 

self -shining.  For  them,  what  man  can 
behold  remains  always  a  something  ex- 
ternal, that  from  some  side  or  other  must 
come  to  them  externally.  Ruysbroek 
believed  that  the  highest  wisdom  must 
needs  shine  forth  for  mystic  contem- 
plation. Gerson  believed  only  that  the 
soul  can  illuminate  the  content  of  an 
external  teaching  (that  of  the  Church). 
For  Gerson,  Mysticism  was  nothing 
else  but  possessing  a  warm  feeling  for 
everything  that  is  revealed  in  this 
teaching.  For  Ruysbroek,  it  was  a 
faith,  that  the  content  of  all  teaching 
is  also  born  in  the  soul.  Therefore 
Gerson  blames  Ruysbroek  in  that  the 
latter  imagines  that  not  only  has  he  the 
power  to  behold  the  All-Being  with 
clearness,  but  that  in  this  beholding 
there  expresses  itself  an  activity  of  the 
All-Being.     Ruysbroek  simply  could  not 


132  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

be  understood  by  Gerson.  Both  spoke 
of  two  wholly  different  things.  Ruys- 
broek  has  in  his  mind's  eye  the  life  of 
the  soul  that  lives  itself  into  oneness 
with  its  God;  Gerson,  only  a  soul-life 
that  seeks  to  love  the  God  whom  it  can 
never  actually  live  in  itself.  Like  many 
others,  Gerson  fought  against  something 
that  was  strange  to  him  only  because  he 
could  not  grasp  it  in  experience. 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA 

A  GLORIOUSLY  shining  star  in  the  sky 
of  the  thought-life  of  the  Middle  Ages 
is  Nicholas  Chrysippus  of  Cusa  (at 
Trevis,  1401-1464).  He  stands  upon  the 
summit  of  the  knowledge  of  his  time. 
In  mathematics  he  accomplished  re- 
markable work.  In  natural  science  he 
may  be  described  as  the  forerunner  of 
Copernicus,  for  he  took  up  the  stand- 
point that  the  earth  is  a  moving  celestial 
body  like  others.  He  had  already  broken 
away  from  a  view  upon  which  even  a 
hundred  years  later  the  great  astronomer, 
Tycho  Brahe,  based  himself,  when  he 
hurled  against  the  teaching  of  Coper- 
nicus   the    sentence:    "The    earth    is    a 

133 


134  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

gross,  heavy  mass  inapt  for  movement; 
how,  then,  can  Copernicus  make  a 
star  of  it  and  run  it  about  in  the  air?" 
The  same  man  who  thus  not  only  em- 
braced all  the  knowledge  of  his  time,  but 
also  extended  it  further,  possessed  in 
addition,  in  a  high  degree,  the  power  of 
awakening  this  knowledge  in  the  inner 
life,  so  that  it  not  only  illuminates  the 
external  world,  but  also  mediates  for 
man  that  spiritual  life,  which  from  the 
profounder  depths  of  his  soul  he  needs 
must  long  after. 

If  we  compare  Nicholas  with  such 
spirits  as  Eckhart  or  Tauler,  we  obtain 
a  remarkable  result.  Nicholas  is  the 
scientific  thinker,  striving  to  lift  himself 
from  research  about  the  things  of  the 
world  on  to  the  level  of  a  higher  percep- 
tion; Eckhart  and  Tauler  are  the  faith- 
ful believers,   who  seek   the  higher  life 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     135 

from  within  the  content  of  this  faith. 
Eventually  Nicholas  arrives  at  the  same 
inner  life  as  Meister  Eckhart;  but  the 
inner  life  of  the  former  has  a  rich  store 
of  knowledge  as  its  content. 

The  full  significance  of  this  difference 
becomes  clear  when  we  reflect  that  for 
the  student  of  science  the  danger  lies 
very  near  at  hand  of  misunderstanding 
the  scope  of  that  species  of  knowing 
which  enlightens  us  regarding  the  various 
special  departments  of  knowledge.  He 
can  very  readily  be  misled  into  believing 
that  there  really  is  only  one  single  kind 
or  mode  of  knowledge;  and  then  he  will 
either  over-  or  under-rate  this  knowledge 
which  leads  us  to  the  goal  in  the  various 
special  sciences.  In  the  one  case  he 
will  approach  the  subject-matter  of  the 
highest  spiritual  life  as  he  would  a  prob- 
lem in  physics,  and  proceed  to  deal  with 


136  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

it  by  means  of  concepts  such  as  he  would 
apply  to  gravitation  or  electricity.  Thus, 
according  as  he  believes  himself  to  be 
more  or  less  enlightened,  the  world  will 
appear  to  him  as  a  blindly  working 
machine,  or  an  organism,  or  as  the 
teleological  structure  of  a  personal  God: 
perhaps  even  as  a  form  which  is  ruled  and 
pervaded  by  a  more  or  less  clearly  con- 
ceived ''World-Soul.'*  In  the  other  case 
he  notes  that  the  knowledge,  of  which 
alone  he  has  any  experience,  is  adapted 
only  to  the  things  of  the  sense-world; 
and  then  he  will  become  a  sceptic,  saying 
to  himself:  We  can  know  nothing  about 
things  which  lie  beyond  the  world  of  the 
senses.  Our  knowledge  has  a  limit. 
For  the  needs  of  the  higher  life  we  have 
no  choice  but  to  throw  ourselves  blindly 
into  the  arms  of  faith  untouched  by 
knowledge.     And    for    a    learned    theo- 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     137 

logian  like  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  who  was 
also  a  scientist,  this  second  danger  lay 
peculiarly  near  at  hand.  For  he  emerged, 
along  the  lines  of  his  learned  training, 
from  Scholasticism, — the  way  of  conceiv- 
ing things  which  was  dominant  in  scien- 
tific life  within  the  Mediaeval  Church;  a 
mode  of  thought  that  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
(1227-1274),  the  ''Prince  of  Scholastics," 
had  brought  to  its  highest  perfection. 
We  must  take  this  mode  of  conceiving 
things  as  the  background,  when  we 
desire  to  portray  the  personality  of 
Nicholas  of  Cusa. 

Scholasticism  is,  in  the  highest  degree, 
a  product  of  human  sagacity;  and  in  it 
the  logical  capacity  celebrated  its  highest 
triumphs.  Any  one  who  is  striving  to 
work  out  concepts  in  their  sharpest, 
most  clear-cut  outlines,  ought  to  go  to 
the    Scholastics    for    instruction.     They 


138  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

afford  us  the  High  School  for  the  tech- 
nique of  thinking.  They  possess  an 
incomparable  skill  in  moving  in  the  field 
of  pure  thinking.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
value what  they  were  able  to  achieve 
in  this  field;  for  it  is  only  with  difficulty 
accessible  to  man  as  regards  most  de- 
partments of  knowledge.  The  majority 
rise  to  its  level  only  in  the  domains  of 
numbers  and  calculation,  and  in  reflect- 
ing upon  the  connection  of  geometrical 
figures. 

We  can  count  by  adding  in  thought  a 
unity  to  a  number,  without  needing  to 
call  to  our  help  sense-conceptions.  We 
calculate  also,  without  such  concep- 
tions, in  the  pure  element  of  thought. 
In  regard  to  geometrical  figures,  we  know 
that  they  never  perfectly  coincide  with 
any  sensible  perception.  There  is  no 
such  thing  within  sensible  reality  as  an 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     139 

"ideal"  circle.  Yet  our  thinking  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  purely  ideal  circle. 
For  things  and  processes  which  are  more 
complicated  than  forms  of  number  and 
space,  it  is  more  difficult  to  find  the  ideal 
counterparts.  This  has  even  led  so  far 
that  it  has  been  contended,  from  various 
sides,  that  in  the  separated  departments 
of  knowledge  there  is  only  so  much  of 
real  science  as  there  is  of  measuring  and 
counting. 

The  truth  about  this  is  that  most  men 
are  not  capable  of  grasping  the  pure 
thought-element  where  it  is  no  longer 
concerned  with  what  can  be  counted  or 
measured.  But  the  man  who  cannot  do 
that  for  the  higher  realms  of  life  and 
knowledge,  resembles  in  that  respect  a 
child,  which  has  not  yet  learned  to  count 
otherwise  than  by  adding  one  pea  to 
another.     The   thinker   who   said   there 


140  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

was  just  so  much  real  science  in  any 
domain  as  there  was  mathematics  in  it, 
was  not  very  much  at  home  in  the  matter. 
One  ought  rather  to  demand  that  every- 
thing which  cannot  be  measured  or 
counted  should  be  handled  just  as  ideally 
as  the  forms  of  number  and  space.  And 
the  Scholastics  in  the  fullest  way  did 
justice  to  this  demand.  They  sought 
everywhere  the  thought-content  of  things, 
just  as  the  mathematician  seeks  it  in  the 
field  of  what  is  measurable  and  countable. 
In  spite  of  this  perfected  logical  art, 
the  Scholastics  attained  only  to  a  one- 
sided and  subordinate  conception  of 
Knowledge.  Their  conception  is  this: 
that  in  the  act  of  knowing,  man  creates 
in  himself  an  image  of  what  he  is  to 
know.  It  is  obvious,  without  further 
discussion,  that  with  such  a  conception 
of  the  knowing  process  all  reality  must 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     141 

be  located  outside  of  the  knowing.  For 
one  can  grasp,  in  knowing,  not  the  thing 
itself,  but  only  an  image  of  that  thing. 
Also,  in  knowing  himself  man  cannot 
grasp  himself,  but  again,  what  he  does 
know  of  himself  is  only  an  image  of 
himself.  It  is  entirely  from  out  of  the 
spirit  of  Scholasticism  that  an  accurate 
student  thereof^  says:  *^Man  has  in 
time  no  perception  of  his  ego,  of  the 
hidden  ground  of  his  spiritual  being 
and  life,  ...  he  will  never  attain  to 
beholding  himself;  for  either,  estranged 
for  ever  from  God,  he  will  find  in  himself 
only  a  fathomless,  dark  abyss,  an  endless 
emptiness,  or  else,  made  blessed  in  God, 
he  will  find  on  turning  his  gaze  inwards 
just  that  very  God,  the  sun  of  whose 
mercy  is  shining  within  him,  whose  image 

^  K.  Werner,  in  his  book  upon   Frank  Suarez  and  the 
Scholasticism  of  the  Last  Centuries,  p.  122. 


142  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  likeness  shapes  itself  in  the  spiritual 
traits  of  his  nature/^ 

Whoever  thinks  like  this  about  all 
knowing,  has  only  such  a  conception  of 
knowing  as  is  applicable  to  external 
things.  The  sensible  factor  in  anything 
always  remains  external  for  us;  therefore 
we  can  only  take  up  into  our  knowledge 
pictures  of  whatever  is  sensible  in  the 
world.  When  we  perceive  a  colour  or  a 
stone,  we  are  unable,  in  order  to  know 
the  being  of  the  colour  or  the  stone,  to 
become  ourselves  the  colour  or  the  stone. 
Just  as  little  can  the  colour  or  the 
stone  transform  itself  into  a  part  of  our 
own  being.  It  may,  however,  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  conception  of  such  a 
knowing-process,  wholly  directed  to  what 
is  external  in  things,  is  an  exhaustive  one. 

For  Scholasticism,  all  human  knowing 
does  certainly  in  the  main  coincide  with 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     143 

this  kind  of  knowing.  Another  admi- 
rable authority  on  Scholasticism'  char- 
acterises the  conception  of  knowledge 
with  which  we  are  concerned  in  this 
direction  of  thought  in  the  following 
manner:  *^Our  spirit,  allied  in  earth- 
life  with  the  body,  is  primarily  focussed 
upon  the  surrounding  bodily  world, 
but  ordered  in  the  direction  of  the 
spiritual  therein:  the  beings,  natures, 
forms  of  things,  the  elements  of  exist- 
ence, which  are  related  to  our  spirit 
and  offer  to  it  the  rungs  for  its  ascent 
to  the  super-sensuous;  the  field  of  our 
knowledge  is  therefore  the  realm  of  ex- 
perience, but  we  must  learn  to  understand 
what  it  offers,  to  penetrate  to  its  meaning 
and  thought,  and  thereby  unlock  for 
ourselves  the  world  of  thought.'' 

^Otto  Willman,  in  his   History  of  Idealism,  vol.  ii., 
P-  395- 


144  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  Scholastic  could  not  attain  to 
any  other  conception  of  knowledge,  for 
the  dogmatic  content  of  his  theology 
prevented  his  doing  so.  If  he  had  di- 
rected the  gaze  of  his  spiritual  eye  upon 
that  which  he  regards  as  an  image  only, 
he  would  then  have  seen  that  the  spiritual 
content  of  things  reveals  itself  in  this 
supposed  image;  he  would  then  have 
found  that  in  his  own  inner  being  the 
God  not  alone  images  Himself,  but  that 
He  lives  therein,  is  present  there  in  His 
own  nature.  He  would  have  beheld  in 
gazing  into  his  own  inner  being,  not  a 
dark  abyss,  an  endless  emptiness,  but 
also  not  merely  an  image  of  God;  he 
would  have  felt  that  a  life  pulses  within 
him,  which  is  the  very  life  of  God  itself; 
and  that  his  own  life  is  verily  just  God's 
life. 

This  the  Scholastic  dared  not  admit. 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     145 

The  God  must  not,  in  his  opinion,  enter 
into  him  and  speak  forth  from  him; 
God  must  only  be  in  him  as  an  image. 
In  reahty,  the  Godhead  must  be  external 
to  the  self.  Accordingly,  also,  it  could 
not  reveal  itself  from  within  through 
the  spiritual  life,  but  must  reveal  itself 
from  outside,  through  supernatural  com- 
munication. What  is  aimed  at  in  this, 
is  just  exactly  what  is  least  of  all  attained 
thereby.  It  is  sought  to  attain  to  the 
highest  possible  conception  of  the  God- 
head. In  reality,  the  Godhead  is  dragged 
down  and  made  a  thing  among  other 
things;  only  that  these  other  things 
reveal  themselves  to  us  naturally,  through 
experience;  while  the  Godhead  is  sup- 
posed to  reveal  Itself  to  us  supematu- 
rally.  A  difference,  however,  between 
the  knowledge  of  the  divine  and  of  the 

created  is  attained  in  this  way:  that  as 
10 


146  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

regards  the  created,  the  external  thing 
is  given  in  experience,  so  that  we  have 
knowledge  of  it;  while  as  regards  the 
divine,  the  object  is  not  given  to  us  in 
experience;  we  can  reach  it  only  in  faith. 
The  highest  things,  therefore,  are  for 
the  Scholastic  not  objects  of  knowledge, 
but  mainly  of  faith.  It  is  true  that 
the  relation  of  knowledge  to  faith  must 
not  be  so  conceived,  according  to  the 
Scholastic  view,  as  if  in  a  certain  domain 
only  knowledge,  and  in  another  only 
faith  reigned.  For  "the  knowledge  of 
that  which  is,  is  possible  to  us,  because 
it,  itself,  springs  from  a  creative  element; 
things  are  for  the  spirit,  because  they 
are  from  the  spirit ;  they  have  something 
to  tell  us,  because  they  have  a  meaning 
which  a  higher  intelligence  has  placed 
in    them.'"     Because  God    has   created 

'  Otto  Willman,  History  of  Idealism,  vol.  ii.,  p.  383. 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     147 

the  world  according  to  thoughts,  we  too 
are  able,  when  we  grasp  the  thoughts 
of  the  world,  to  seize  also  upon  the 
traces  of  the  Divine  in  the  world,  through 
scientific  reflection.  But  what  God  is, 
according  to  His  own  being,  we  can  learn 
only  from  that  revelation  which  He  has 
given  to  us  in  supernatural  ways,  and 
in  which  we  must  believe.  What  we 
ought  to  think  about  the  highest  things, 
must  be  decided  not  by  any  himian 
knowledge,  but  by  faith;  and  "to  faith 
belongs  all  that  is  contained  in  the 
writings  of  the  New  and  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  in  the  divine  traditions."  ^ 
It  is  not  our  task  here  to  present  and 
establish  in  detail  the  relation  of  the 
content  of  faith  to  the  content  of  know- 
ledge.    In   truth,    all   and    every   faith- 

^  Joseph  Kleutgen,  Die   Theologie  der  Vorzeit,  vol.  i., 
P-  39. 


148  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

content  originates  from  some  actual 
inner  himian  experience  that  has  once 
been  undergone.  Such  an  experience  is 
then  preserved,  as  far  as  its  outer  form 
goes,  without  the  consciousness  of  how 
it  was  acquired.  And  people  maintain 
in  regard  to  it  that  it  came  into  the 
world  by  supernatural  revelation.  The 
content  of  the  Christian  faith  was  simply- 
accepted  by  the  Scholastics.  Science, 
inner  experience,  had  no  business  to 
claim  any  rights  over  it.  As  little  as 
science  can  create  a  tree,  just  so  little 
dared  Scholasticism  to  create  a  concep- 
tion of  God;  it  was  bound  to  accept  the 
revealed  one  ready-made  and  complete, 
just  as  natural  science  has  to  accept 
the  tree  ready-made.  That  the  spiritual 
itself  can  shine  forth  and  live  in  man's 
inner  nature,  could  never,  never  be  ad- 
mitted by  the  Scholastic.     He  therefore 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     149 

drew  the  frontier  of  the  rightful  power 
of  knowledge  at  the  point  where  the 
domain  of  outer  experience  ceases.  Hu- 
man knowledge  must  not  dare  to  beget 
out  of  itself  a  conception  of  the  higher 
beings;  it  is  bound  to  accept  a  revealed 
one.  The  Scholastics  naturally  could 
not  admit  that  in  doing  so  they  were 
accepting  and  proclaiming  as  ''revealed*' 
a  conception  which  in  truth  had  really 
been  begotten  at  an  earlier  stage  of 
man's  spiritual  life. 

Thus,  in  the  course  of  its  development, 
all  those  ideas  had  vanished  from  Scholas- 
ticism which  indicated  the  ways  and 
means  by  which  man  had  begotten,  in  a 
natural  manner,  his  conceptions  of  the 
divine.  In  the  first  centuries  of  the 
development  of  Christianity,  at  the  time 
of  the  Church  Fathers,  we  see  the 
doctrinal   content   of   theology   growing 


150  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

bit  by  bit  by  the  assimilation  of  inner 
experiences.  In  Johannes  Scotus  Eri- 
gena,  who  stood  at  the  summit  of  Christ- 
ian theological  culture  in  the  ninth 
century,  we  find  this  doctrinal  content 
being  handled  entirely  as  an  inner  liv- 
ing experience.  With  the  Scholastics 
of  the  following  centuries,  this  charac- 
teristic of  an  inner,  living  experience 
disappears  altogether:  the  old  doctrinal 
content  becomes  transposed  into  the 
content  of  an  external,  supernatural 
revelation. 

One  might,  therefore,  understand  the 
activity  of  the  mystical  theologians, 
Eckhart,  Tauler,  Suso  and  their  asso- 
ciates, in  the  following  sense:  they  were 
stimulated  by  the  doctrines  of  the  Church, 
which  were  contained  in  its  theology, 
but  had  been  misinterpreted,  to  bring 
to  birth  afresh  from  within  themselves, 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     151 

as    inner    living    experience,    a    similar 
content. 


Nicholas  of  Cusa  sets  out  to  mount 
from  the  knowledge  one  acquires  in  the 
isolated  sciences  up  to  the  inner  living 
experiences.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  excellent  logical  technique  which  the 
Scholastics  have  developed,  and  for  which 
Nicholas  himself  was  educated,  forms  a 
most  effective  means  of  attaining  to 
these  inner  experiences,  even  though  the 
Scholastics  themselves  were  held  back 
from  this  road  by  their  positive  faith. 
But  one  can  only  understand  Nicholas 
fully  when  one  reflects  that  his  calling  as 
a  priest,  which  raised  him  to  the  dignity 
of  Cardinal,  prevented  him  from  coming 
to  a  complete  breach  with  the  faith  of 
the  Church,  which  found  an  expression 


152  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

appropriate  to  the  age  in  Scholasticism. 
We  find  him  so  far  along  the  road,  that 
a  single  step  further  would  necessarily 
have  carried  him  out  of  the  Church. 
We  shall  therefore  understand  the  Card- 
inal best  if  we  complete  the  one  step 
more  which  he  did  not  take;  and 
then,  looking  backwards,  throw  light 
upon  what  he  aimed  at. 

The  most  significant  thought  in  Nicho- 
las's mental  life  is  that  of  "learned 
ignorance/'  By  this  he  means  a  form 
of  knowing  which  occupies  a  higher  level 
as  compared  with  ordinary  knowledge. 
In  the  lower  sense,  knowledge  is  the 
grasping  of  an  object  by  the  mind,  or 
spirit.  The  most  important  character- 
istic of  knowing  is  that  it  gives  us  light 
about  something  outside  of  the  spirit, 
that  therefore  it  directs  its  gaze  upon 
something    different    from    itself.     The 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     153 

spirit,  therefore,  is  concerned  in  the 
knowing-process  with  things  thought  of 
as  outside  itself.  Now  what  the  spirit 
develops  in  itself  about  things  is  the 
being  of  those  things.  The  things  are 
spirit.  Man  sees  the  spirit  so  far  only 
through  the  sensible  encasement.  What 
lies  outside  the  spirit  is  only  this  sensible 
encasement;  the  being  of  the  things 
enters  into  the  spirit.  If,  then,  the 
spirit  turns  its  attention  to  this  being  of 
the  things,  which  is  of  like  nature  with 
itself,  then  it  can  no  longer  talk  of 
knowing ;  for  it  is  not  looking  at  anything 
outside  of  itself,  but  is  looking  at  some- 
thing which  is  part  of  itself;  is,  indeed, 
looking  at  itself.  It  no  longer  knows; 
it  only  looks  upon  itself.  It  is  no  longer 
concerned  with  a  "knowing,"  but  with 
a  ''not-knowing."  No  longer  does  man 
"grasp"   something   through   the  mind; 


154  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

he  ^'beholds  without  conceiving"  his 
own  life.  This  highest  stage  of  knowing 
is,  in  comparison  with  the  lower  stages, 
a  "not-knowing/' 

But  it  is  obvious  that  the  essential 
being  of  things  can  only  be  reached 
through  this  stage  of  knowing.  Thus 
Nicholas  of  Cusa  in  speaking  of  his 
''learned  not-knowing"  is  really  speaking 
of  nothing  else  but  ''  knowing"  come  to  a 
new  birth,  as  an  inner  experience.  He 
tells  us  himself  how  he  came  to  this 
inner  experience.  '*I  made  many  efforts 
to  unite  the  ideas  of  God  and  the  world, 
of  Christ  and  the  Church,  into  a  single 
root-idea;  but  nothing  satisfied  me  until 
at  last,  on  my  way  back  from  Greece  by 
sea,  my  mind's  vision,  as  if  by  an  il- 
Itmiination  from  above,  soared  up  to 
that  perception  in  which  God  appeared 
to  me  as  the  supreme  Unity  of  all  con- 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     155 

tradictions."  To  a  greater  or  less  extent 
this  illumination  was  due  to  influences 
derived  from  the  study  of  his  prede- 
cessors. One  recognises  in  his  way  of 
looking  at  things  a  peculiar  revival  of 
the  views  which  we  meet  with  in  the 
writings  of  a  certain  Dionysius.  The 
above-mentioned  Scotus  Erigena  trans- 
lated these  writings  into  Latin,  and 
speaks  of  their  author  as  the  ''great  and 
divine  revealer.** 

The  works  in  question  are  first  men- 
tioned in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth 
century.  They  were  ascribed  to  that 
Dionysius,  the  Areopagite,  named  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  who  was  converted 
to  Christianity  by  St.  Paul.  When  these 
writings  were  really  composed  may  here 
be  left  an  open  question.  Their  con- 
tents worked  powerfully  upon  Nicholas 
as  they  had  already  worked  upon  Scotus 


156  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Erigena,  and  as  they  must  also  have 
been  in  many  ways  stimulating  for  the 
way  of  thinking  of  Eckhart  and  his 
colleagues.  This  ' '  learned  not-knowing '  * 
is  in  a  certain  way  preformed  in  these 
writings.  Here  we  can  only  indicate 
the  essential  trait  in  the  way  of  con- 
ceiving things  found  in  these  works. 
Man  primarily  knows  the  things  of  the 
sense- world.  He  forms  thoughts  about  its 
being  and  action.  The  Primal  Cause  of 
all  things  must  lie  higher  than  these  things 
themselves.  Man  therefore  must  not  seek 
to  grasp  this  Primal  Cause  by  means  of  the 
same  concepts  and  ideas  as  things.  If 
he  therefore  ascribes  to  the  Root-Being 
(God)  attributes  which  he  has  learned  to 
know  in  lower  things,  such  attributes  can 
be  at  best  auxiliary  conceptions  of  his 
weak  spirit,  which  drags  down  the  Root- 
Being  to  itself,  in  order  to  conceive  it. 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     157 

In  truth,  therefore,  no  attribute  what- 
soever which  lower  things  possess  can 
be  predicated  of  God.  It  must  not  even 
be  said  that  God  *'  is. "  For  * ' being ' '  too 
is  a  concept  which  man  has  formed  from 
lower  things.  But  God  is  exalted  above 
"being"  and  "not-being."  The  God 
to  whom  we  ascribe  attributes,  is  there- 
fore not  the  true  God.  We  come  to  the 
true  God,  when  we  think  of  an  "Over- 
God"  above  and  beyond  any  God  with 
such  attributes.  Of  this  "Over-God" 
we  can  know  nothing  in  the  ordinary 
sense.  In  order  to  attain  to  Him , ' '  know- 
ing" must  merge  into  "not-knowing." 

One  sees  that  at  the  root  of  such  a  view 
there  lies  the  consciousness  that  man  him- 
self is  able  to  develop  a  higher  knowing, 
which  is  no  longer  mere  knowing — in  a 
purely  natural  manner — on  the  basis  of 
what  his  various  sciences  have  yielded 


158  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

him.  The  Scholastic  view  declared 
knowledge  to  be  impotent  to  such  a 
development;  and,  at  the  point  where 
knowledge  is  supposed  to  cease,  it  called 
in  to  the  help  of  knowledge  a  faith 
basing  itself  upon  external  revelation. 
Nicholas  of  Cusa  was  thus  upon  the  road 
to  develop  out  of  knowledge  itself  that 
which  the  Scholastics  had  declared  to 
be  unattainable  for  knowledge. 

We  thus  see  that,  from  Nicholas  of 
Cusa's  point  of  view,  there  can  be  no 
question  of  there  being  only  one  kind  or 
mode  of  knowing.  On  the  contrary,  for 
him,  knowing  clearly  divides  itself  into 
two,  first  into  such  knowing  as  mediates 
our  acquaintance  with  external  objects, 
and  second  into  such  as  is  itself  the 
object  of  which  one  gains  knowledge. 
The  first  mode  of  knowing  is  dominant 
in   the  sciences,   which  teach  us  about 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     159 

the  things  and  occurrences  of  the  outer 
world;  the  second  is  in  us  when  we  our- 
selves live  in  the  knowledge  we  have 
acquired.  This  second  kind  of  knowing 
grows  out  of  the  first.  Now,  however, 
it  is  still  one  and  the  same  world  with 
which  both  these  modes  of  knowing  are 
concerned;  and  it  is  one  and  the  self- 
same man  who  is  active  in  both.  Hence 
the  question  must  arise,  whence  comes  it 
that  one  and  the  self-same  man  develops 
two  different  kinds  of  knowledge  of  one 
and  the  same  world. 

Already,  in  connection  with  Tauler, 
the  direction  could  be  indicated  in  which 
the  answer  to  this  question  must  be 
sought.  Here  in  Nicholas  of  Cusa  this 
answer  can  be  still  more  definitely  formu- 
lated. In  the  first  place,  man  lives  as 
a  separated  (individual)  being  amidst 
other  separated  beings.     In  addition  to 


i6o  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  effects  which  the  other  beings  produce 
on  each  other,  there  arises  in  his  case 
the  (lower)  knowledge.  Through  his 
senses  he  receives  impressions  from  other 
beings,  and  works  up  these  impressions 
with  his  inner  spiritual  powers.  He 
then  turns  his  spiritual  gaze  away  from 
external  things,  and  beholds  himself  as 
well  as  his  own  activity.  In  so  doing 
self-knowledge  arises  in  him.  But  so 
long  as  he  remains  on  this  level  of  self- 
knowledge,  he  does  not,  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  behold  himself.  He  can 
still  believe  that  some  hidden  being  is 
active  within  him,  whose  manifestations 
and  effects  are  only  that  which  appears 
to  him  to  be  his  own  activities.  But 
now  the  moment  may  come  in  which, 
through  an  incontrovertible  inner  ex- 
perience, it  becomes  clear  to  the  man  that 
he  experiences,  in  whq,t  he  perceives  or 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     i6i 

feels  within  himself,  not  the  manifestation 
or  effect  of  any  hidden  power  or  being, 
but  this  very  being  itself  in  its  most 
essential  and  intimate  form.  Then  he 
can  say  to  himself:  In  a  certain  way  I 
find  all  other  things  ready  given,  and  I 
myself,  standing  apart  from  and  outside 
of  them,  add  to  them  whatever  the 
spirit  has  to  tell  about  them.  But  what 
I  thus  creatively  add  to  the  things  in 
myself,  therein  do  I  myself  live;  that  is 
myself,  my  very  own  being.  But  what 
is  that  which  speaks  there  in  the  depths 
of  my  spirit?  It  is  the  knowledge  which 
I  have  acquired  of  the  things  of  the 
world.  But  in  this  knowledge  there 
speaks  no  longer  an  effect,  a  manifest- 
ation; that  which  speaks  expresses  itself 
wholly,  holding  back  nothing  of  what 
it  contains.  In  this  knowledge,  there 
speaks  the  world  in  all  its  immediacy. 


IX 


i62  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

But  I  have  acquired  this  knowledge  of 
things  and  of  myself,  as  one  thing  among 
other  things.  From  out  my  own  being 
I  myself  speak,  and  the  things,  too, 
speak. 

Thus,  in  truth,  I  am  giving  utterance 
no  longer  only  to  my  own  being ;  I  am  also 
giving  utterance  to  the  being  of  things 
themselves.  My  "ego"  is  the  form,  the 
organ  in  which  the  things  express  them- 
selves about  themselves.  I  have  gained 
the  experience  that  in  myself  I  experience 
my  own  essential  being;  and  this  ex- 
perience expands  itself  in  me  to  the 
further  one  that  in  myself  and  througn 
myself  the  All-Being  Itself  expresses 
Itself,  or  in  other  words,  knows  Itself. 
I  can  now  no  longer  feel  myself  as  a 
thing  among  other  things ;  I  can  now  only 
feel  myself  as  a  form  in  which  the  All- 
Being  lives  out  Its  own  life. 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     163 

It  is  thus  only  natural  that  one  and 
the  same  man  should  have  two  modes 
of  knowing.  Judging  by  the  facts  of  the 
senses,  he  is  a  thing  among  other  things, 
and,  in  so  far  as  he  is  that,  he  gains  for 
himself  a  knowledge  of  these  things;  but 
at  any  moment  he  can  acquire  the  higher 
experience  that  he  is  really  the  form  in 
which  the  All-Being  beholds  Itself.  Then 
man  transforms  himself  from  a  thing 
among  other  things  into  a  form  of  the 
All-Being — and,  along  with  himself,  the 
knowledge  of  things  transforms  itself 
into  the  expression  of  the  very  being  of 
things.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  this 
transformation  can  only  be  accomplished 
through  man.  That  which  is  mediated 
in  the  higher  knowledge  does  not  exist 
as  long  as  this  higher  knowledge  itself 
is  not  present.  Man  becomes  only  a 
real  being  in  the  creation  of  this  higher 


i64  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

knowledge;  and  only  through  man's 
higher  knowledge  can  things  also  bring 
their  being  forth  into  real  existence. 

If,    therefore,   we   demand   that   man 
shall  add  nothing  to  things  through  his 
inner  knowledge,   but  merely  give    ex- 
pression  to  whatever  already  exists   in 
the  things  outside  of  himself,  that  would 
really  amount  to  a  complete  abnegation 
of  all  higher  knowledge.     From  the  fact 
that  man,  in  respect  of  his  sensible  life, 
is  merely  one  thing  among  others,  and 
that  he  only  attains  to  the  higher  know- 
ledge when  he  himself  accomplishes  with 
himself,    as  a  being   of   the   senses,   the 
transformation   into  a   higher  being,   it 
follows  that  he  can  never  replace  the 
one   kind   of  knowledge   by   the   other. 
His  spiritual  life  consists,  on  the  contrary, 
in  a  ceaseless  oscillation  between  these 
two  poles  of  knowledge — between  know- 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     165 

ing  and  seeing.  If  he  shuts  himself  off 
from  the  seeing,  he  abandons  the  real 
nature  of  things:  if  he  seeks  to  shut 
himself  off  from  sense-perception,  he 
would  shut  out  from  himself  the  things 
whose  nature  he  seeks  to  know.  It  is 
these  very  same  things  which  reveal 
themselves  alike  in  the  lower  knowing 
and  the  higher  seeing;  only  in  the  one 
case  they  reveal  themselves  according 
to  their  outer  appearance;  in  the  other 
according  to  their  inner  being.  Thus  it 
is  not  due  to  the  things  themselves  that, 
at  a  certain  stage,  they  appear  only  as 
external  things;  but  their  doing  so  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  man  must  first  of 
all  raise  and  transform  himself  to  the 
level  upon  which  the  things  cease  to  be 
external  and  outside. 

In  the   light  of  these  considerations, 
some  of  the  views  which  natural  science 


i66  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

has  developed  during  the  nineteenth 
century  appear  for  the  first  time  in  the 
right  Hght.  The  supporters  of  these 
views  tell  us  that  we  hear,  see,  and  touch 
the  objects  of  the  physical  world  through 
our  senses.  The  eye,  for  instance,  trans- 
mits to  us  a  phenomenon  of  light,  a 
colour.  Thus  we  say  that  a  body  emits 
red  light,  when  with  the  help  of  the 
eye  we  experience  the  sensation  "red." 
But  the  eye  can  give  us  this  same  sen- 
sation in  other  cases  also.  If  the  eyeball 
is  struck  or  pressed  upon,  or  if  an  electric 
spark  is  allowed  to  pass  through  the 
head,  the  eye  has  a  sensation  of  light. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  even  in  the 
cases  in  which  we  have  the  sensation  of 
a  body  emitting  red  light,  something 
may  really  be  happening  in  that  body 
which  has  no  sort  of  resemblance  to  the 
colour  we  sensate.     Whatever  may  be 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     167 

actually  happening  "outside  of  us"  in 
space,  so  long  as  what  happens  is  capable 
of  making  an  impression  on  the  eye, 
there  arises  in  us  the  sensation  of  light. 
Thus  what  we  experience  arises  in  us, 
because  we  possess  organs  constituted 
in  a  particular  manner.  What  happens 
outside  in  space,  remains  outside  of  us; 
we  know  only  the  effects  which  the 
external  happenings  call  up  in  us.  Her- 
mann Helmholtz  (i  821-1893)  has  given 
a  clearly  outlined  expression  to  this 
thought : 

"Our  sensations  are  simply  effects 
which  are  produced  in  our  organs  by 
external  causes,  and  the  manner  in  which 
such  an  effect  will  show  itself  depends, 
naturally  enough,  altogether  upon  the 
kind  of  apparatus  upon  which  the  action 
takes  place.  In  so  far  as  the  quality 
of  our  sensation  gives  us  information  as 


i68  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  external 
action  which  produces  the  sensation,  so 
far  can  the  sensation  be  regarded  as  a 
sign  or  symbol  of  this  external  action, 
but  not  as  an  image  or  reproduction  of 
it.  For  we  expect  in  a  picture  some 
kind  of  resemblance  to  the  object  it 
represents;  thus  in  a  statue,  resemblance 
of  form;  in  a  drawing,  resemblance  in 
the  perspective  projection  of  the  field 
of  view;  in  a  painting,  resemblance  of 
colour  in  addition.  A  symbol,  how- 
ever, is  not  required  to  have  any  sort 
of  resemblance  to  that  which  it  sym- 
bolises. The  necessary  connection  be- 
tween the  object  and  the  symbol  is 
limited  to  this:  that  the  same  object 
coming  into  action  under  the  same  con- 
ditions shall  call  up  the  same  symbol, 
and  that  therefore  different  symbols 
shall  always  correspond  to  different  ob- 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     169 

jects.  When  berries  of  a  certain  kind 
in  ripening  produce  together  red  coloiira- 
tion  and  sugar,  then  red  colour  and  a 
sweet  taste  will  always  find  themselves 
together  in  our  sensation  of  berries  of 
this  form/*' 

Let  us  follow  out  step  by  step  the  line 
of  thought  which  this  view  makes  its 
own.  It  is  assumed  that  something 
happens  outside  of  me  in  space;  this 
produces  an  effect  upon  my  sense-organs; 
and  my  nervous  system  conducts  the 
impression  thus  made  to  my  brain. 
There  another  occurrence  is  brought 
about.  I  experience  the  sensation  *^red." 
Now  follows  the  assertion:  therefore  the 
sensation  "red"  is  not  outside,  not  ex- 

*  Cp.  Helmholtz,  Die  Thatsachen  der  Wahrnehmung, 
p.  12  et  seq.  1  have  characterised  this  kind  of  conception 
in  detail  in  my  Philosophie  der  Freiheit,  Berlin,  1894,  and 
in  my  Welt-  und  Lehensanschauungen  im  Neunzehntcn 
Jahrhundert,  vol.  ii.,  p.  i.,  etc. 


170  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ternal  to  me;  it  is  in  me.  All  our  sensa- 
tions are  merely  symbols  or  signs  of 
external  occurrences  of  whose  real  quality 
we  know  nothing.  We  live  and  move  in 
our  sensations  and  know  nothing  of  their 
origin.  In  the  spirit  of  this  line  of 
thought,  it  would  thus  be  possible  to 
assert  that  if  we  had  no  eyes,  colour 
would  not  exist;  for  then  there  would  be 
nothing  to  translate  this,  to  us,  wholly 
unknown  external  happening  into  the 
sensation  "red.'* 

For  many  people  this  line  of  thought 
possesses  a  curious  attraction;  but 
nevertheless  it  originates  in  a  complete 
misconception  of  the  facts  under  con- 
sideration. (Were  it  not  that  many  of 
the  present  day  scientists  and  philoso- 
phers are  blinded  even  to  absurdity 
by  this  line  of  thought,  one  would  need 
to  say  less  about  it.     But,  as  a  matter 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     1 7 1 

of  fact,  this  blindness  has  ruined  in  many 
respects  the  thinking  of  the  present  day.) 
In  truth,  since  man  is  but  one  object  or 
thing  among  other  things,  it  naturally 
follows  that  if  he  is  to  have  any  experience 
of  them  at  all,  they  must  make  an  im- 
pression upon  him  somehow  or  other. 
Something  that  happens  outside  the 
man  must  cause  something  to  happen 
within  him,  if  in  his  visual  field  the  sen- 
sation "red"  is  to  make  its  appearance. 
The  whole  question  turns  upon  this: 
What  is  without?  what  within?  Outside 
of  him  something  happens  in  space  and 
time.  But  within  there  is  undoubtedly 
a  similar  occurrence.  For  in  the  eye 
there  occurs  such  a  process,  which  mani- 
fests itself  to  the  brain  when  I  perceive 
the  colour  "red.**  This  process  which 
goes  on  "inside"  me,  I  cannot  perceive 
directly,  any   more   than  I  can   directly 


172    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

perceive  the  wave  motions  "outside'* 
which  the  physicist  conceives  of  as 
answering  to  the  colour  ''red/'  But 
really  it  is  only  in  this  sense  that  I  can 
speak  of  an  "inside"  and  an  "outside" 
at  all.  Only  on  the  plane  of  sense-per- 
ception can  the  opposition  between 
"outside"  and  "inside"  hold  good. 

The  recognition  of  this  leads  me  to 
assume  the  existence  "outside"  of  a 
process  in  space  and  time,  although  I 
do  not  directly  perceive  it  at  all.  And 
the  same  recognition  further  leads  me 
to  postulate  a  similar  process  within 
myself,  although  I  cannot  directly  per- 
ceive that  either.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  habitually  postulate  analogous 
occurrences  in  space  and  time  in  ordinary 
life  which  I  do  not  directly  perceive;  as, 
for  instance,  when  I  hear  piano-playing 
next  door,  and  assume  that  a  human  being 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     173 

in  space  is  seated  at  the  piano  and  is 
playing  upon  it.  And  my  conception, 
when  I  speak  of  processes  happening 
outside  of,  and  within  me,  is  just  the 
same.  I  asstime  that  these  processes  have 
quaUties  analogous  to  those  of  the  pro- 
cesses which  do  fall  within  the  province 
of  my  senses,  only  that,  because  of 
certain  reasons,  they  escape  my  direct 
perception. 

If  I  were  to  attempt  to  deny  to 
these  processes  all  the  qualities  which 
my  senses  show  me  in  the  domains  of 
space  and  time,  I  should  in  reality  and 
in  truth  be  trying  to  think  something 
not  unlike  the  famous  knife  without 
a  handle,  whose  blade  was  wanting. 
Therefore,  I  can  only  say  that  space  and 
time  processes  take  place  ''outside" 
me;  these  bring  about  space  and  time 
processes    ''within"    me;    and  both  are 


>> 


J » 


174  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

necessary  if  the  sensation  "red"  is  to 
appear  in  my  field  of  vision.  And,  in 
so  far  as  this  "red"  is  not  in  space  and 
time,  I  shall  seek  for  it  equally  in  vain, 
whether  I  seek  "without"  or  "within" 
myself.  Those  scientists  and  philoso- 
phers who  cannot  find  it  "outside, 
ought  not  to  want  to  find  it  "inside 
either.  For  it  is  not  "inside,"  in  exactly 
the  same  sense  in  which  it  is  not  "out- 
side." To  declare  that  the  total  content 
of  that  which  the  sense-world  presents 
to  us  is  but  an  inner  world  of  sensation 
or  feeling,  and  then  to  endeavour  to  tack 
on  something  "external"  or  "outside" 
to  it,  is  a  wholly  impossible  conception. 
Hence,  we  must  not  speak  of  "red," 
"sweet,"  "hot,"  etc.,  as  being  symbols,  or 
signs,  which  as  such  are  only  aroused  with- 
in us,  and  to  which  "outside "  of  us  some- 
thing totally  different  corresponds.     For 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA     175 

that  which  is  really  set  going  within  us, 
as  the  effect  of  some  external  happening, 
is  something  altogether  other  than  what 
appears  in  the  field  of  our  sensations. 
If  we  want  to  call  that  which  is  within 
us  a  symbol,  then  we  can  say:     These 
symbols  make  their  appearance  within 
our  organism,  in  order  to  mediate  to  us 
the  perceptions  which,  as  such,  in  their 
immediacy,  are  neither  within  nor  out- 
side of  us,  but  belong,  on  the  contrary, 
to   that   common   world,    of   which   my 
''external"    world    and    my    "internal" 
world  are  only  parts.     In  order  to  be 
able  to  grasp  this  common  world,  I  must, 
it   is  true,   raise  myself  to  that  higher 
plane  of  knowledge,  for  which  an  "inner" 
and    an    "outer"    no    longer    exist.     (I 
know  quite  well  that  people  who  pride 
themselves  on  the  gospel  that  our  entire 
world  of  experience  builds  itself  up  out 


176  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  sensations  and  feelings  of  unknown 
origin  will  look  contemptously  upon 
these  remarks;  as,  for  instance,  Dr. 
Erich  Adikes  in  his  book,  Kant  contra 
Haeckel,  observes  condescendingly:  ^'At 
first  people  like  Haeckel  and  thousands 
of  his  type  philosophise  gaily  away 
without  troubling  themselves  about 
theory  of  knowledge  or  critical  self- 
reflection."  Such  gentlemen  have  no 
inkling  of  how  cheap  their  own  theories 
of  knowledge  are.  They  suspect  the 
lack  of  critical  self-reflection  only  in 
others.  Let  us  leave  to  them  their 
''wisdom.") 

Nicholas  of  Cusa  expresses  some  very 
telling  thoughts  bearing  directly  upon  this 
very  point.  The  clear  and  distinct  way 
in  which  he  holds  apart  the  lower  and 
the  higher  knowledge  enables  him,  on 
the  one  side,  to  arrive  at  a  full  and  com- 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA   177 

plete  recognition  of  the  fact  that  man 
as  a  sense-being  can  only  have  in  himself 
processes  which,  as  effects,  must  neces- 
sarily be  altogether  unlike  the  corres- 
ponding external  processes;  while,  on 
the  other  side,  it  guards  him  against 
confusing  the  inner  processes  with  the 
facts  which  make  their  appearance  in 
the  field  of  our  perceptions,  and  which, 
in  their  immediacy,  are  neither  outside 
nor  inside,  but  altogether  transcend  this 
opposition  of  *'in*'  and  "out/* 

But  Nicholas  was  hampered  in  the 
thorough  carrying  through  of  these  ideas 
by  his  ''priestly  garments."  So  we  see 
how  he  makes  a  fine  beginning  with 
the  progress  from  *' knowing"  to  "not- 
knowing."  At  the  same  time  we  must 
also  note  that  in  the  domain  of  the  higher 
knowledge,  or  "ignorance,"  he  unfolds 
practically  nothing  but  the  content  of 


12 


178  MYSTICS  OP  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  theological  teaching  which  the  Scho- 
lastics also  give  us.  Certainly  he  knows 
how  to  expound  this  theological  content 
in  a  most  able  manner.  He  presents  us 
with  teachings  about  Providence,  Christ, 
the  creation  of  the  world,  man's  salvation, 
the  moral  life,  which  are  kept  thoroughly 
in  harmony  with  dogmatic  Christianity. 
It  would  have  been  in  accordance  with 
his  mental  starting  point,  to  say:  I  have 
confidence  in  human  nature  that  after 
having  plunged  deeply  into  the  science 
of  things  in  all  directions,  it  is  capable 
of  transforming  from  within  itself  this 
"knowing**  into  a  "not-knowing,"  in 
such  wise  that  the  highest  insight  shall 
bring  satisfaction.  In  that  case,  he 
would  not  simply  have  accepted  the 
traditional  ideas  of  the  soul,  immor- 
tality, salvation,  God,  creation,  the 
Trinity,    and    so   forth,   as  he    actually 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA    179 

did,  but  he  would  have  represented  his 
own. 

But  Nicholas  personally  was,  however, 
so  saturated  with  the  conceptions  of 
Christianity  that  he  might  well  believe 
himself  to  have  awakened  in  himself  a 
"not-knowing**  of  his  own,  while  yet 
he  was  merely  bringing  to  light  the 
traditional  views  in  which  he  was  brought 
up.  But  he  stood  upon  the  verge  of  a 
terrible  precipice  in  the  spiritual  life 
of  man.  He  was  a  scientific  man.  Now 
science,  primarily,  estranges  us  from  the 
innocent  harmony  in  which  we  live  with 
the  world  so  long  as  we  abandon  our- 
selves to  a  purely  naive  attitude  towards 
life.  In  such  an  attitude  to  life,  we 
dimly  feel  our  connection  with  the  world - 
whole. 

We  are  beings  like  others,  forming 
links  in  the  chain  of  Nature's  workings. 


i8o  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

But  with  knowledge  we  separate  ourselves 
off  from  this  whole;  we  create  within  us 
a  mental  world,  wherewith  we  stand 
alone  and  isolated  over  against  Nature. 
We  have  become  enriched ;  but  our  riches 
are  a  burden  which  we  bear  with  diffi- 
culty; for  it  weighs  primarily  upon  our- 
selves alone.  And  we  must  now,  by 
our  own  strength,  find  the  way  back 
again  to  Nature.  We  have  to  recognise 
that  we  ourselves  must  now  fit  our 
wealth  into  the  stream  of  world  activities, 
just  as  previously  Nature  herself  had 
fitted  in  our  poverty.  All  evil  demons 
lie  in  wait  for  man  at  this  point.  His 
strength  can  easily  fail  him.  Instead 
of  himself  accomplishing  this  fitting  in, 
he  will,  if  his  strength  thus  fails,  seek 
refuge  in  some  revelation  coming  from 
without,  which  frees  him  again  from  his 
loneliness,  which  leads  back  once  more 


CARDINAL  NICHOLAS  OF  CUSA  i8i 

the  knowledge  that  he  feels  a  burden, 
into  the  very  womb  of  being,  into  the 
Godhead.  Like  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  he 
will  believe  that  he  is  travelling  his  own 
road;  and  yet  in  reality  he  will  be  only 
following  the  path  which  his  own  spiritual 
evolution  has  pointed  out  for  him. 

Now  there  are — in  the  main — three 
roads  which  one  can  follow,  when  once 
one  has  reached  the  point  at  which 
Nicholas  had  arrived :  the  one  is  positive 
faith,  forcing  itself  upon  us  from  with- 
out; the  second  is  despair;  one  stands 
alone  with  one*s  burden,  and  feels  the 
whole  universe  tottering  with  oneself; 
the  third  road  is  the  development  of  the 
deepest,  most  inward  powers  of  man. 
Confidence,  trust  in  the  world  must  be 
one  of  our  guides  upon  this  third  path; 
courage,  to  follow  that  confidence  whither- 
soever it  may  lead  us,  must  be  the  other. 


AGRIPPA  VON  NETTESHEIM  AND 
THEOPHRASTUS  PARACELSUS 

Both  Heinrich  Cornelius  Agrippa  von 
Nettesheim  (1487 -1535)  and  Theo- 
phrastus  Paracelsus  (i  493-1 541)  followed 
the  same  road  along  which  points  Nicho- 
las of  Cusa's  way  of  conceiving  things. 
They  devoted  themselves  to  the  study 
of  Nature,  and  sought  to  discover  her 
laws  by  all  the  means  in  their  power  and 
as  thoroughly  as  possible.  In  this  know- 
ledge of  Nature,  they  saw  the  true  basis 
of  all  higher  knowledge.  They  strove 
to  develop  this  higher  knowledge  from 
within  the  science  or  knowledge  of  Nature 
by  bringing  that  knowledge  to  a  new 

birth  in  the  spirit. 

182 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     183 

Agrippa  von  Nettesheim  led  a  much 
varied  life.  He  sprang  from  a  noble 
family  and  was  bom  in  Cologne.  He 
early  studied  medicine  and  law,  and 
sought  to  obtain  clear  insight  into  the 
processes  of  Nature  in  the  way  which 
was  then  customary  within  certain  circles 
and  societies,  or  even  among  isolated 
investigators,  who  studiously  kept  secret 
whatever  of  the  knowledge  of  Nature 
they  discovered.  For  these  purposes 
he  went  repeatedly  to  Paris,  to  Italy,  and 
to  England,  and  also  visited  the  famous 
Abbot  Trithemius  of  Sponheim  in  Wiirz- 
burg.  He  taught  at  various  times  in 
learned  institutions,  and  here  and  there 
entered  the  service  of  rich  and  distin- 
guished people,  at  whose  disposal  he 
placed  his  abilities  as  a  statesman  and  a 
man  of  science.  If  the  services  that  he 
rendered  are  not  always  described  by  his 


1 84  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

biographers  as  unobjectionable,  if  it  is 
said  that  he  made  money  under  the  pre- 
tence of  understanding  secret  arts  and 
conferring  benefits  on  people  thereby, 
there  stands  against  this  his  unmistakable, 
unresting  impulse  to  acquire  honestly 
the  entire  knowledge  of  his  age,  and  to 
deepen  this  knowledge  in  the  direction 
of  a  higher  cognition  of  the  world. 

We  may  see  in  him  very  plainly 
the  endeavour  to  attain  to  a  clear  and 
definite  attitude  towards  natural  science 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  higher  know- 
ledge on  the  other.  But  he  only  can 
attain  to  such  an  attitude  who  is  pos- 
sessed of  a  clear  insight  as  to  the  respec- 
tive roads  which  lead  to  one  and  to  the 
other  kind  of  knowledge.  As  true  as  it 
is  on  the  one  hand  that  natural  science 
must  eventually  be  raised  into  the  region 
of   the  spirit,  if  it  is  to  pass  over  into 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     185 

higher  knowledge;  so,  also,  it  is  true  on 
the  other,  that  this  natural  science  must, 
to  begin  with,  remain  upon  its  own  special 
ground,  if  it  is  to  yield  the  right  basis 
for  the  attainment  of  a  higher  level. 
The  "spirit  in  Nature"  exists  only  for 
spirit.  So  surely  as  Nature  in  this  sense 
is  spiritual,  so  surely  too  is  there  nothing 
in  Nature,  of  all  that  is  perceived  by  my 
bodily  organs,  which  is  immediately 
spiritual.  There  exists  nothing  spiritual 
which  can  appear  to  my  eye  as  spiritual. 
Therefore,  I  must  not  seek  for  the  spirit 
as  such  in  Nature ;  but  that  is  what  I  am 
doing  when  I  interpret  any  occurrence 
in  the  external  world  immediately  as 
spiritual;  when,  for  instance,  I  ascribe 
to  a  plant  a  soul  which  is  supposed  to  be 
only  remotely  analogous  to  that  of  man. 
Further,  I  again  do  the  same  when  I 
ascribe   to   spirit   itself  an  existence   in 


1 86  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

space  and  time;  as,  for  instance,  when  I 
assert  of  the  hiiman  soul  that  it  continues 
to  exist  in  time  without  the  body,  but 
yet  after  the  manner  of  a  body;  or  again, 
when  I  even  go  so  far  as  to  believe  that, 
under  any  sort  of  conditions  or  arrange- 
ments perceivable  by  the  senses,  the 
spirit  of  a  dead  person  can  show  itself. 
Spiritualism,  which  makes  this  mistake, 
only  shows  thereby  that  it  has  not  at- 
tained to  a  true  conception  of  the  spirit 
at  all,  but  is  still  bent  upon  directly  and 
immediately  ''seeing"  the  spirit  in  some- 
thing grossly  sensible.  It  mistakes 
equally  both  the  real  nature  of  the  sen- 
sible and  also  that  of  the  spirit.  It 
de-spiritualises  the  ordinary  world  of 
sense,  which  hourly  passes  before  our 
eyes,  in  order  to  give  the  name  of  spirit 
immediately  to  something  rare,  sur- 
prising,  uncommon.     It  fails  to  under- 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     187 

stand  that  that  which  lives  as  the  "spirit 
in  nature"  reveals  itself  to  him  who  is 
able  to  perceive  spirit  in  the  collision 
of  two  elastic  balls,  for  instance;  and  not 
only  in  occurrences  which  are  striking 
from  their  rarity,  and  which  cannot  all 
at  once  be  grasped  in  their  natural 
sequence  and  connection. 

But  the  spiritist  further  drags  the 
spirit  down  into  a  lower  sphere.  Instead 
of  explaining  something  that  happens  in 
space,  and  that  he  perceives  through  his 
senses  only,  in  terms  of  forces  and  beings 
which  in  their  turn  are  spacial  and  per- 
ceptible to  the  senses,  he  resorts  to 
''spirits,"  which  he  thereby  places  exactly 
on  a  level  with  the  things  of  the  senses. 
At  the  very  root  of  such  a  way  of  viewing 
things,  there  lies  a  lack  of  the  power  of 
spiritual  apprehension.  We  are  unable 
to  perceive  spiritual  things  spiritually; 


i88  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

we  therefore  satisfy  our  craving  for  the 
spiritual  with  mere  beings  perceptible 
to  the  senses.  Their  own  inner  spirit 
reveals  to  such  men  nothing  spiritual; 
and  therefore  they  seek  for  the  spiritual 
through  the  senses.  As  they  see  clouds 
flying  through  the  air,  so  they  would 
fain  see  spirits  hastening  along.  Agrippa 
von  Nettesheim  fought  for  a  genuine 
science  of  Nature,  which  shall  explain 
the  phenomena  of  Nature,  not  by  means 
of  spirits  phenomenalising  in  the  world 
of  the  senses,  but  by  seeing  in  Nature  only 
the  natural,  and  in  the  spirit  only  the 
spiritual. 

Of  course,  Agrippa  will  be  entirciy 
misunderstood  if  one  compares  his  natural 
science  with  that  of  later  centuries  which 
dispose  of  wholly  different  experiences. 
In  such  a  comparison,  it  might  easily 
seem    that    he    was    still    actually    and 


NETTESHEIAd  AND  PARACELSUS      189 

entirely  referring  to  the  direct  action  of 
spirits,  things  which  only  depend  upon 
natural  connections  or  upon  mistaken 
experience.  Such  a  wrong  is  done  to 
him  by  Moriz  Carriere  when  he  says, 
not  in  any  malicious  sense,  it  is  true: 
''Agrippa  gives  a  huge  list  of  things 
which  belong  to  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  the 
Planets  and  the  fixed  stars,  and  receive 
influences  from  them;  for  instance:  to 
the  Sun  are  related  Fire,  Blood,  Laurel, 
Gold,  Chrysolite;  they  confer  the  gifts 
of  the  Sun:  Courage,  Cheerfulness,  and 
Light.  .  .  .  Animals  have  a  natural 
sense,  which,  higher  than  himian  under- 
standing, approaches  the  spirit  of  pro- 
phecy. .  .  .  Men  can  be  bewitched  to 
love  and  hate,  to  sickness  and  health. 
Thieves  can  be  bewitched  so  that  they 
cannot  steal  at  some  particular  place, 
merchants,  that  they  cannot  do  business, 


190  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

mills,  that  they  cannot  work,  lightning 
flashes,  that  they  cannot  strike.  This  is 
brought  about  through  drinks,  salves,  im- 
ages, rings,  incantations;  the  blood  of  hy- 
enas or  basilisks  is  adapted  to  such  a 
purpose' — it  reminds  one  of  Shakespeare's 
witches'  cauldron."  No;  it  does  not 
remind  one  of  that,  if  one  understands 
Agrippa  aright.  He  believed- — it  goes 
without  saying — in  many  facts  which  in 
his  time  everybody  regarded  as  unques- 
tionable. But  we  still  do  the  same  to-day. 
Or  do  we  imagine  that  future  centuries 
will  not  relegate  much  of  what  we  now  re- 
gard as  "undoubted  fact*'  to  the  lumber- 
room    of    "blind"    superstition? 

I  am  convinced  that  in  our  knowledge 
of  facts  there  has  been  a  real  progress. 
When  once  the  "fact"  that  the  earth  is 
round  had  been  discovered,  all  previous 
conjectures  were  banished  into  the  do- 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     191 

main  of  "superstition";  and  the  same 
holds"good  of  certain  truths  of  astronomy, 
biology,  etc.  The  doctrine  of  natural 
evolution  constitutes  an  advance,  as  com- 
pared with  all  previous  ''theories  of 
creation,"  similar  to  that  marked  by 
the  recognition  of  the  roundness  of  the 
earth  as  contrasted  with  all  previous 
speculations  as  to  its  form.  Neverthe- 
less, I  am  vividly  conscious  that  in  our 
learned  scientific  works  and  treatises 
there  is  to  be  found  many  a  "fact** 
which  will  seem  to  future  centuries  to  be 
just  as  little  of  a  fact  as  much  that  Para- 
celsus and  Agrippa  maintain;  but  the 
really  important  point  is  not  what  they 
regarded  as  "fact,"  but  hoWy  in  what 
spirit,  they  interpreted  their  "facts." 

In  Agrippa 's  time,  there  was  little 
understanding  or  sympathy  for  the 
"natural  magic"  he  represented,  which 


192  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

sought     in    Nature    the    natural  — the 
spiritual  only   in  the  spirit ;  men  clung 
to    the    "supernatural    magic,"    which 
sought  the  spiritual  in  the  realm  of  the 
sensible,  and  which   Agrippa   combated. 
Therefore    the     Abbot     Trithemius    of 
Sponheim  was  right  in  giving  him  the 
advice  to  communicate  his  views  only 
as   a   secret  teaching   to  a  few  chosen 
pupils  who  could  rise  to  a  similar  idea 
of  Nature  and  spirit,  because  one  ''gives 
only   hay  to  oxen  and  not  sugar  as   to 
singing  birds.'*     It  may  be  that  Agrippa 
himself  owed   to  this   same  Abbot  his 
own    correct    point    of    view.     In    his 
Steganography,  Trithemius  has  produced 
a   book  in  which  he   handled  with  the 
most    subtle    irony    that  mode  of    con- 
ceiving things  which  confuses  nature  with 
spirit. 

In  this  book  he  apparently  speaks  of 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS      193 

nothing  but  supernatural  occurrences. 
Any  one  reading  it  as  it  stands  must 
believe  that  the  author  is  talking  of  conju- 
rations of  spirits,  of  spirits  flying  through 
the  air,  and  so  on.  If,  however,  one 
drops  certain  words  and  letters  under 
the  table,  there  remain — as  Wolfgang 
Ernst  Heidel  proved  in  the  year  1676 — • 
letters  which,  combined  into  words,  de- 
scribe purely  natural  occurrences.  (In 
one  case,  for  instance,  in  a  formula  of 
conjuration,  one  must  drop  the  first 
and  last  words  entirely,  and  then  cancel 
from  the  remainder  the  second,  fourth, 
sixth,  and  so  on.  In  the  words  left 
over,  one  must  again  cancel  the  first, 
third,  fifth  letters  and  so  on.  One  next 
combines  what  is  then  left  into  words; 
and  the  conjtiration  formula  resolves 
itself  into  a  purely  natural  communi- 
cation.) 
13 


194  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

How  difficult  it  was  for  Agrippa  to 
work  himself  free  from  the  prejudices  of 
his  time  and  to  rise  to  a  pure  perception 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  did  not 
allow  his  "Occult  Philosophy"  {Philoso- 
phia  Occulta),  already  written  in  15 lo, 
to  appear  before  the  year  1531,  because 
he   considered   it   unripe.     Further  evi- 
dence of  this  fact  is  given  by  his  work 
'  *  On  the  Vanity  of  the  Sciences ' '  {De  Vani- 
tate  Scientiarum)    in   which    he    speaks 
with    bitterness    of    the    scientific    and 
other   activities  of  his   time.     He  there 
states  quite  clearly  that  he  has  only  with 
difficulty  wrenched  himself  free  from  the 
phantasy  which  beholds  in  external  ac- 
tions immediate  spiritual    processes,  in 
external   facts   prophetic   indications   of 
the  future,  and  so  forth. 

Agrippa  advances  to  the  higher  know- 
ledge in  three  stages.     He  treats  as  the 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     195 

first  stage  the  world  as  it  is  given  for 
the  senses,  with  its  substances,  its  phy- 
sical, chemical  and  other  forces.  He 
calls  Nature,  in  so  far  as  it  is  looked  at 
on  this  level,  "elementary  Nature."  On 
the  second  stage,  one  contemplates  the 
world  as  a  whole  in  its  natural  inter- 
connection, as  it  orders  things  according 
to  measure,  number,  weight,  harmony, 
and  so  forth.  The  first  stage  proceeds 
from  one  thing  to  the  next  nearest.  It 
seeks  for  the  causes  of  an  occurrence  in 
its  immediate  surroimdings.  The  second 
stage  regards  a  single  occurrence  in 
connection  with  the  entire  universe. 
It  carries  through  the  idea  that  every- 
thing is  subject  to  the  influence  of  all 
other  things  in  the  entire  world-whole. 
In  its  eyes  this  world-whole  appears  as 
a  vast  harmony,  in  which  each  individual 
item  is  a  member.     Agrippa  terms  the 


196  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

world,  regarded  from  this  point  of  view, 
the  ' '  astral "  or  "  heavenly ' '  world .  The 
third  stage  of  knowing  is  that  wherein 
the  spirit,  by  plunging  deep  into  itself, 
perceives  immediately  the  spiritual,  the 
Root-Being  of  the  world.  Agrippa  here 
speaks  of  the  world,  of  soul  and  spirit. 

The  views  which  Agrippa  develops 
about  the  world,  and  the  relation  of  man 
to  the  world,  present  themselves  to  us 
in  the  case  of  Theophrastus  Paracelsus, 
in  a  similar  manner,  only  in  more  per- 
fected form.  It  is  better,  therefore,  to 
consider  them  in  connection  with  the 
latter. 

Paracelsus  characterises  himself  aptly, 
when  he  writes  under  his  portrait: 
''None  shall  be  another's  slave,  who  for 
himself  can  remain  alone.''  His  whole 
attitude  towards  knowledge  is  given  in 
these  words.     He  strives  everywhere  to 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS      197 

go  back  himself  to  the  deepest  founda- 
tions of  natural  knowledge,  in  order  to 
rise  by  his  own  strength  to  the  loftiest 
regions  of  cognition.  As  Physician,  he 
will  not,  like  his  contemporaries,  simply 
accept  what  the  ancient  investigators, 
who  then  counted  as  authorities, — Galen 
or  Avicenna,  for  instance,  asserted  long 
ago;  he  is  resolved  to  read  for  himself 
directly  in  the  book  of  Nature.  **The 
Physician  must  pass  Nature's  examina- 
tion, which  is  the  world,  and  all  its 
origins.  And  the  very  same  that 
Nature  teaches  him,  he  must  command 
to  his  wisdom,  but  seek  for  nothing  in 
his  wisdom,  only  and  alone  in  the  light 
of  Nature."  He  shrinks  from  nothing, 
in  order  to  learn  to  know  Nature  and 
her  workings  in  all  directions.  For  this 
purpose  he  made  journeys  to  Sweden, 
Hungary,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  East. 


198  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

He  can  truly  say  of  himself:  '*I  have 
followed  the  Art  at  the  risk  of  my  life, 
and  have  not  been  ashamed  to  learn 
from  wanderers,  executioners  and  sheep- 
shearers.  My  doctrine  was  tested  more 
severely  than  silver  in  poverty,  fears, 
wars   and   hardships." 

What  has  been  handed  down  by  ancient 
authorities  has  for  him  no  value,  for  he 
believes  that  he  can  attain  to  the  right 
view  only  if  he  himself  experiences  the 
upward  climb  from  the  knowledge  of 
Nature  to  the  highest  insight.  This 
living,  personal  experience  puts  into  his 
mouth  the  proud  utterance:  ''He  who 
will  follow  truth,  must  come  into  my 
monarchy.  .  .  .  After  me;  not  I  after 
you,  Avicenna,  Rhases,  Galen,  Mesur! 
After  me;  not  I  after  you,  0  ye  of  Paris, 
ye  of  Montpellier,  ye  of  Swabia,  ye  of 
Meissen,  ye  of  Cologne,  ye  of  Vienna  and 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS      199 

of   what   lies   on   the   Danube   and   the 
Rhine;  ye  islands  in  the  sea,  thou  Italy, 
thou  Dalmatia,  thou  Athens,  thou  Greek, 
thou  Arab,  thou  Israelite;  after  me,  not 
I  after  you!     Mine  is  the  Monarchy." 
It  is  easy  to  misunderstand  Paracelsus 
because    of    his    rough    exterior,    which 
sometimes  conceals  a  deep  earnestness 
behind  a  jest.     Does  he  not  himself  say: 
''By  nature  I  am  not  subtly  woven,  nor 
brought  up  on  figs  and  wheat-bread,  but 
on  cheese,  milk  and  rye-bread,  wherefore 
I  may  well  be  rude  with  the  over-clean 
and  superfine ;  for  those  who  were  brought 
up   in  soft   clothing  and  we  who  were 
bred  in  pine  needles  do  not  easily  under- 
stand one  another.     When  in  myself  I 
mean  to  be  kindly,  I  must  therefore  often 
be  taken  as  rude.     How  can  I  not  be 
strange  to  one  who  has  never  wandered 
in  the  sun?" 


200  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

In  his  book  about  Winkelmann,  Goethe 
has  described  the  relation  of  man  to 
Nature  in  the  following  beautiful  sen- 
tence: "When  the  healthy  nature  of 
man  acts  as  a  whole;  when  he  feels  him- 
self as  one  with  a  great,  beautiful,  noble 
and  worthy  whole;  when  the  sense  of 
harmonious  well-being  gives  him  a  pure 
and  free  delight ;  then  would  the  Universe, 
if  it  could  be  conscious  of  its  own  feeling, 
burst  forth  in  joy  at  having  attained  its 
goal,  and  contemplate  with  wondering 
admiration  the  summit  of  its  own  be- 
coming and  being/'  With  a  feeling 
such  as  finds  expression  in  these  sen- 
tences, Paracelsus  is  simply  saturated. 
From  out  of  its  depths  the  riddle  of 
humanity  takes  shape  for  him.  Let  us 
watch  how  this  happens  in  Paracelsus's 
sense. 

At    the    outset,    the    road    by    which 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     201 

Nature  has  travelled  to  attain  her  loftiest 
altitude  is  hidden  from  man's  power 
of  comprehension.  She  has  climbed,  in- 
deed, to  the  stmimit;  but  the  summit 
does  not  proclaim:  I  feel  myself  as  the 
whole  of  Nature;  it  proclaims,  on  the 
contrary:  I  feel  myself  as  this  single, 
separated  human  being.  That  which  in 
reality  is  an  achievement  of  the  whole 
universe,  feels  itself  as  a  separated, 
isolated  being,  standing  alone  by  itself. 
This  indeed  is  the  true  being  of  man, 
viz.,  that  he  must  needs  feel  himself  to 
be  something  quite  different  from  what, 
in  ultimate  analysis,  he  really  is.  And 
if  that  be  a  contradiction,  then  must 
man  be  called  a  contradiction  come  to 
life. 

Man  is  the  universe  in  his  own 
particular  way;  he  regards  his  oneness 
with  the   universe   as  a  duality:    he    is 


202  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  very  same  that  the  universe  is;  but 
he  is  the  universe  as  a  repetition,  as 
a  single  being.  This  is  the  contrast 
which  Paracelsus  feels  as  the  Microcosm 
(Man)  and  the  Macrocosm  (Universe). 
Man,  for  him,  is  the  universe  in  minia- 
ture. That  which  makes  man  regard 
his  relationship  to  the  world  in  this  way, 
that  is  his  spirit.  This  spirit  appears 
as  if  bound  to  a  single  being,  to  a  single 
organism:  and  this  organism  belongs,  by 
the  very  nature  of  its  whole  being,  to  the 
mighty  stream  of  the  universe.  It  is 
one  member,  one  link  in  that  whole, 
having  its  very  existence  only  in  relation 
with  all  the  other  links  or  members 
thereof.  But  spirit  appears  as  an  out- 
come of  this  single,  separated  organism, 
and  sees  itself  at  the  outset  as  bound  up 
only  with  that  organism.  It  tears  loose 
this   organism   from    the   mother   earth 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS    203 

out  of  which  it  has  grown.  So,  for 
Paracelsus,  a  deep-seated  connection  be- 
tween man  and  the  universe  lies  hidden 
in  the  basic  foundations  of  being,  a 
connection  which  is  hidden  through  the 
presence  of  ** spirit/*  That  spirit  which 
leads  us  to  higher  insight  by  making 
knowledge  possible,  and  leads  on  this 
knowledge  to  a  new  birth  on  a  higher 
level' — this  has,  as  its  first  result  for  us 
men,  to  veil  from  us  our  own  oneness 
with   the   whole. 

Thus  the  nature  of  man  resolves  itself 
for  Paracelsus  in  the  first  place  into  three 
factors:  our  sensuous-physical  nature, 
our  organism  which  appears  to  us  as  a 
natural  being  among  other  natural  beings 
and  is  of  like  nature  with  all  other  natural 
beings;  our  concealed  or  hidden  nature, 
which  is  a  link  in  the  chain  of  the  whole 
universe,  and   therefore  is  not   shut  up 


204  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

within  the  organism  or  limited  to  it, 
but  radiates  and  receives  the  workings 
of  energy  upon  and  from  the  entire 
universe;  and  our  highest  nature,  our 
spirit,  which  lives  its  life  in  a  purely 
spiritual  manner.  The  first  factor  in 
man*s  nature  Paracelsus  calls  the  ''ele- 
mentary body " ;  the  second,  the  ethereal- 
heavenly,  or  ''astral  body";  and  the 
third  he  names  "the  Soul.'* 

Thus  in  the  "astral"  phenomena, 
Paracelsus  recognises  an  intermediate 
stage  between  the  purely  physical  and 
the  properly  spiritual  or  soul-phenomena. 
Therefore  these  astral  activities  will  come 
into  view  when  the  spirit  or  soul,  which 
veils  or  conceals  the  natural  basis  of 
our  being,  suspends  its  activity.  In  the 
dream-world  we  see  the  simplest  phe- 
nomena of  this  realm.  The  pictures 
which  hover  before  us  in  dreams,  with 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS  205 

their  remarkably  significant  connection 
with  occurrences  in  our  environment 
and  with  states  of  our  inner  nature,  are 
products  of  our  natural  basis  or  root- 
being,  which  are  obscured  by  the  brighter 
light  of  the  soul.  For  example,  when  a 
chair  falls  over  beside  my  bed  and  I 
dream  a  whole  drama  ending  with  a  shot 
fired  in  a  duel;  or  when  I  have  palpi- 
tation of  the  heart  and  dream  of  a 
boiling  cauldron,  we  can  see  that  in 
these  dreams  natural  operations  come 
to  light  which  are  full  of  sense  and 
meaning,  and  disclose  a  life  lying  be- 
tween the  purely  organic  functions  and 
the  concept-forming  activity  which  is 
carried  on  in  the  full,  clear  consciousness 
of  the  spirit.  Connected  with  this  region 
are  all  the  phenomena  belonging  to  the 
domain  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion; 
and  in  the  latter  are  we  not  compelled 


2o6  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  recognise  an  interaction  between  hu- 
man beings,  which  points  to  some  con- 
nection or  relation  between  beings  in 
Nature,  which  is  normally  hidden  by  the 
higher  activity  of  the  mind?  From  this 
starting  point  we  can  reach  an  under- 
standing of  what  Paracelsus  meant  by 
the  *' astral"  body.  It  is  the  simi  total 
of  those  natural  operations  under  whose 
influence  we  stand,  or  may  in  special 
circumstances  come  to  stand,  or  which 
proceed  from  us,  without  our  souls  or 
minds  coming  into  consideration  in  con- 
nection with  them,  but  which  yet  cannot 
be  included  under  the  concept  of  purely 
physical  phenomena.  The  fact  that 
Paracelsus  reckons  as  truths  in  this  do- 
main things  which  we  doubt  to-day, 
does  not  come  into  the  question,  from 
the  point  of  view  which  I  have  already 
described. 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     207 

Starting  from  the  basis  of  these  views 
as  to  the  nature  of  man,  Paracelsus 
divides  him  into  seven  factors  or  prin- 
ciples, which  are  the  same  as  those  we 
also  find  in  the  wisdom  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  among  the  Neoplatonists  and 
in  the  Kabbalah.  In  the  first  place, 
man  is  a  physical-bodily  being,  and 
therefore  subject  to  the  same  laws  as 
every  other  body.  He  is,  in  this  respect, 
therefore,  a  purely  ''elementary"  body. 
The  purely  physical-bodily  laws  combine 
into  an  organic  life-process,  and  Para- 
celsus denotes  this  organic  sequence  of 
law  by  the  terms  ''archceus''  or  ''  spiritus 
vitcey  Next,  the  organic  rises  into  a 
region  of  phenomena  resembling  the 
spiritual,  but  which  are  not  yet  properly 
spiritual,  and  these  he  classifies  as  "as- 
tral" phenomena.  From  amidst  these 
astral  phenomena,  the  functions  of  the 


2o8  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

** animal  soul**  make  their  appearance. 
Man  becomes  a  being  of  the  senses. 
Then  he  connects  together  his  sense 
impressions  according  to  their  nature, 
by  his  understanding  or  mind,  and  the 
"human  soul"  or  ''reasoning  soul"  be- 
comes alive  in  him.  He  sinks  himself 
deep  into  his  own  mental  productions, 
and  learns  to  recognise  "spirit"  as  such, 
and  thus  he  has  risen  at  length  to  the 
level  of  the  "spiritual  soul."  Finally, 
he  must  come  to  recognise  that  in 
this  spiritual  soul  he  is  experiencing  the 
ultimate  basis  of  universal  being;  the 
spiritual  soul  ceases  to  be  individual,  to 
be  separated.  Then  arises  the  knowledge 
of  which  Eckhart  spoke  when  he  felt  no 
longer  that  he  was  speaking  within 
himself,  but  that  in  him  the  Root-Being 
was  uttering  Itself.  The  condition  has 
come  about  in  which  the  All-Spirit   in 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS    209 

man  beholds  Itself.  Paracelsus  has 
stamped  the  feeling  of  this  condition  with 
the  simple  words:  "And  that  is  a  great 
thing  whereon  to  dwell:  there  is  naught 
in  heaven  or  upon  earth  that  is  not  in 
Man.  And  God  who  dwelleth  in  Heaven, 
He  also  is  in  Man.'* 

With  these  seven  principles  of  htiman 
nature,  Paracelsus  aims  at  expressing 
nothing  else  than  the  facts  of  inner  and 
outer  experience.  The  fact  remains 
unquestioned  that,  what  for  human  ex- 
perience subdivides  itself  into  a  multi- 
plicity of  seven  factors,  is  in  higher 
reality  a  unity.  But  the  higher  insight 
exists  just  for  the  very  purpose  of  exhibit- 
ing the  unity  in  all  that  appears  as  multi- 
plicity to  man,  owing  to  his  bodily  and 
spiritual  organisation.  On  the  level  of 
the  highest  insight,  Paracelsus  strives  to 
the  utmost   to  fuse  the   unitary   Root- 


210  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

Being  of  the  world  with  his  own  spirit. 
But  he  knows  that  man  can  only  cognise 
Nature  in  its  spirituality,  when  he  enters 
into  immediate  intercourse  with  that 
Nature.  Man  does  not  grasp  Nature 
by  peopling  it  from  within  himself  with 
arbitrarily  assumed  entities;  but  by  ac- 
cepting and  valuing  it  as  it  is,  as  Nature. 
Paracelsus  therefore  does  not  seek  for 
God  or  for  spirit  in  Nature;  but  Nature, 
just  as  it  comes  before  his  eyes,  is  for 
him  wholly,  immediately  divine.  Must 
one  then  first  ascribe  to  the  plant  a  soul 
after  the  kind  of  a  himian  soul,  in  order 
to  find  the  spiritual? 

Hence  Paracelsus  explains  to  himself 
the  development  of  things,  so  far  as  that 
is  possible  with  the  scientific  means  of 
his  age,  altogether  in  such  wise  that  he 
conceives  this  development  as  a  sensible- 
natural   process.     He   makes   all   things 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS    211 

to  proceed  from  the  root-matter,  the 
root-water  (YHaster).  And  he  regards 
as  a  further  natural  process  the  separa- 
tion of  the  root-matter  (which  he  also 
calls  the  great  Limbus)  into  the  four 
elements:  Water,  Earth,  Fire  and  Air. 
When  he  says  that  the  ''Divine  Word" 
called  forth  the  multiplicity  of  beings 
from  the  root-matter,  one  must  under- 
stand this  also  only  in  such  wise  as  per- 
haps in  more  recent  natural  science  one 
must  understand  the  relationship  of 
Force  to  Matter.  A  "Spirit,"  in  a 
matter-of-fact  sense,  is  not  yet  present  at 
this  stage.  This  "Spirit"  is  no  matter- 
of-fact  basis  of  the  natural  process,  but 
a  matter-of-fact  result  of  that  process. 
This  Spirit  does  not  create  Nature, 
but  develops  itself  out  of  Nature.  Not 
a  few  statements  of  Paracelsus  might  be 
interpreted  in  the  opposite  sense.     Thus 


212  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

when  he  says:  "There  is  nothing  which 
does  not  possess  and  carry  with  it  also 
a  spirit  hidden  in  it  and  that  lives  not 
withal.  Also,  not  only  has  that  life, 
which  stirs  itself  and  moves,  as  men,  ani- 
mals, the  worms  in  the  earth,  the  birds 
in  the  sky  and  the  fishes  in  water,  but 
all  bodily  and  actual  things  as  well.'* 

But  in  such  sayings  Paracelsus  only 
aims  at  warning  us  against  that  super- 
ficial contemplation  of  Nature  which 
fancies  it  can  exhaust  the  being  of  a 
thing  with  a  couple  of  "stuck-up"  con- 
cepts, according  to  Goethe's  apt  expres- 
sion. He  aims  not  at  putting  into 
things  some  imaginary  being,  but  at 
setting  in  motion  all  the  powers  of  man 
to  bring  out  that  which  in  actual  fact 
lies  in  the  thing. 

What  matters  is  not  to  let  oneself  be 
misled  by  the  fact  that  Paracelsus  ex- 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS    213 

presses  himself  in  the  spirit  of  his  time. 
It   is  far  more   important   to  recognise 
what   things   really  hovered   before   his 
mind   when,    looking   upon   Nature,    he 
expresses  his  ideas  in  the  forms  of  ex- 
pression proper  to  his  age.     He  ascribes 
to  man,  for  instance,  a  dual  flesh,  that 
is,    a    dual    bodily   constitution.     "The 
flesh  must  also  be  understood,  that  it  is 
of  two  kinds,  namely  the  flesh  that  comes 
from  Adam  and  the  flesh  which  is  not 
from  Adam.     The  flesh  from  Adam  is  a 
gross  flesh,  for  it  is  earthly  and  nothing 
besides   flesh,    that   can   be   bound   and 
grasped  like  wood  and  stone.     The  other 
flesh  is  not  from  Adam,  it  is  a  subtle 
flesh  and  cannot  be  bound  or  grasped, 
for  it  is  not  made  of  earth."     What  is 
the    flesh    that    is    from    Adam?     It    is 
everything  that  man  has  received  through 
natural  development,  everything,  there- 


214  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

fore,  that  has  passed  on  to  him  by 
heredity.  To  that  is  added,  whatever 
man  has  acquired  for  himself  in  his 
intercourse  with  the  world  around  him 
in  the  course  of  time. 

The  modern  scientific  conceptions  of 
inherited  characteristics  and  those  ac- 
quired by  adaptation  easily  emerge  from 
the  above- cited  thought  of  Paracelsus. 
The  ''more  subtle  flesh"  that  makes  man 
capable  of  his  intellectual  activities,  has 
not  existed  from  the  beginning  in  man. 
Man  was  ''gross  flesh"  like  the  animal, 
a  flesh  that  "can  be  bound  and  grasped 
like  wood  and  stone."  In  a  scientific 
sense,  therefore,  the  soul  is  also  an  ac- 
quired characteristic  of  the  "gross  flesh." 
What  the  scientist  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  in  his  mind's  eye  when  he 
speaks  of  the  factors  inherited  from  the 
animal   world,   is   just   what   Paracelsus 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     215 

has  in  view  when  he  uses  the  expression, 
"the  flesh  that  comes  from  Adam." 

Naturally  I  have  not  the  least  intention 
of  blurring  the  difference  that  exists 
between  a  scientist  of  the  sixteenth  and 
one  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was, 
indeed,  this  latter  century  which  for  the 
first  time  was  able  to  see,  in  the  full 
scientific  sense,  the  phenomena  of  living 
beings  in  such  a  connection  that  their 
natural  relationship  and  actual  descent, 
right  up  to  man,  stood  out  clearly  before 
one*s  eyes.  Science  sees  only  a  natural 
process  where  Linnaeus  in  the  eighteenth 
century  saw  a  spiritual  process  and 
characterised  it  in  the  words:  "There 
are  counted  as  many  species  of  living" 
beings,  as  there  were  created  different 
forms  in  the  beginning."  While  thus 
in  Linnaeus's  time,  the  Spirit  had  still 
to  be  transferred  into  the  spacial  world 


2i6  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

and  have  assigned  to  it  the  task  of  spirit- 
ually generating  the  forms  of  life,  or 
'* creating*'  them:  the  natural  science  of 
the  nineteenth  century  could  give  to 
Nature  what  belonged  to  Nature,  and 
to  Spirit  what  belonged  to  Spirit.  To 
Nature  is  even  assigned  the  task  of  ex- 
plaining her  own  creations;  and  the 
Spirit  can  plunge  into  itself  there,  where 
alone  it  is  to  be  found,  in  the  inner  being 
of  man. 

But  although  in  a  certain  sense  Para- 
celsus thinks  according  to  the  spirit  of 
his  age,  yet  he  has  grasped  the  relation- 
ship of  man  to  Nature  in  a  profound 
manner,  especially  in  relation  to  the 
idea  of  Evolution,  of  Becoming.  He  did 
not  see  in  the  Root-Being  of  the  universe 
something  which  in  any  sense  is  there 
as  a  finished  thing,  but  he  grasped  the 
Divine    in    the    process   of    Becoming. 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     217 

Thereby  he  was  enabled  truly  to  ascribe 
to  man  a  self-creative  activity.  For 
if  the  divine  root  of  being  is,  as  it  were, 
given  once  for  all,  then  there  can  be  no 
question  of  any  truly  creative  activity 
in  man.  It  is  not  man,  living  in  time, 
who  then  creates,  but  it  is  God,  who  is 
from  Eternity,  that  creates.  But  for 
Paracelsus  there  is  no  such  God  from 
Eternity.  For  him  there  is  only  an 
eternal  happening,  and  man  is  one  link 
in  this  eternal  happening.  What  man 
forms,  was  previously  in  no  sense  existent. 
What  man  creates,  is,  as  he  creates  it,  a 
new,  original  creation.  If  it  is  to  be 
called  divine,  it  can  only  be  so-called  in 
the  sense  in  which  it  is  a  human  creation. 
Therefore  Paracelsus  can  assign  to  man 
a  r61e  in  the  building  of  the  universe, 
which  makes  him  a  co-architect  in  its 
creation.     The   divine   root   of  beings  is 


2i8  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

without  man,  not  that  which  it  is  with 
man. 

''For  nature  brings  nothing  to  light, 
which  as  such  is  perfect,  but  man  must 
make  it  perfect . ' '  This  self -creative  activ- 
ity of  man  in  the  building  of  the  universe 
is  what  Paracelsus  calls  Alchemy.  ''This 
perfecting  is  Alchemy.  Thus  the  Al- 
chemist is  the  baker,  when  he  bakes 
bread,  the  vintager,  when  he  makes  wine, 
the  weaver,  when  he  makes  cloth." 
Paracelsus  aims  at  being  an  Alchemist 
in  his  own  domain  as  a  Physician. 
"Therefore  I  may  well  write  so  much 
here  about  Alchemy,  that  ye  may  well 
understand  it,  and  experience  that  which 
it  is  and  how  it  is  to  be  understood;  and 
not  find  a  stumbling-block  therein  that 
neither  Gold  nor  Silver  shall  come  to 
thee  therefrom.  But  have  regard  there- 
unto, that  the  Arcana  [curative  means] 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS   219 

be  revealed  unto  thee.  .  .  .  The  third 
pillar  of  medicine  is  Alchemy,  for  the 
preparation  of  the  medicines  cannot 
come  to  pass  without  it,  because  Nature 
cannot  be  made  use  of  without  Art." 

In  the  strictest  sense,  therefore,  the 
eyes  of  Paracelsus  are  directed  to  Nature, 
in  order  to  overhear  from  herself  what 
she  has  to  say  about  that  which  she 
brings  forth.  He  seeks  to  explore  the 
laws  of  chemistry,  so  that,  in  his  sense, 
he  may  work  as  an  Alchemist.  He  pic- 
tures to  himself  all  bodies  as  compounded 
out  of  three  root -substances:  Salt,  Sul- 
phur, and  Mercury.  What  he  thus 
names,  naturally  does  not  coincide  with 
that  which  later  chemistry  solely  and 
strictly  calls  by  these  names;  just  as 
little  as  that  which  Paracelsus  conceives 
of  as  the  root-substance  is  such  in  the 
sense  of  our  later  chemistry.     Different 


220  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

things  are  called  by  the  same  names  at 
different  times.  What  the  ancients 
called  the  four  elements:  Earth,  Water, 
Air,  and  Fire,  we  still  have  to-day. 
But  we  call  these  four  "elements"  no 
longer  "elements,"  but  states  of  aggre- 
gation and  have  for  them  the  designa- 
tions: solid,  liquid,  gaseous  and  etheric. 
The  Earth,  for  instance,  was  for  the 
ancients  not  earth,  but  the  "solid." 

Again,  we  can  clearly  recognise  the 
three  root-substances  of  Paracelsus  in 
contemporary  conceptions,  though  not 
in  present  names  of  like  sound.  For 
Paracelsus,  dissolution  in  a  liquid  and 
burning  are  the  two  most  important 
chemical  processes  which  he  utilises. 
If  a  body  be  dissolved  or  burnt,  it  breaks 
up  into  its  parts.  Something  remains 
behind  as  insoluble;  something  dissolves, 
or  is  burnt.     What  is  left  behind  is  to 


NETTESHEIM  AND  PARACELSUS     221 

him  of  the  nature  of  Salt;  the  soluble 
(liquid)  of  the  nature  of  Mercury;  while 
he  terms  Sulphur-like  the  part  that  can 
be  burnt. 

All  this,  taken  as  relating  to  material 
things,  may  leave  the  man  cold  who 
cannot  look  out  beyond  such  natural 
processes;  whoever  seeks  at  all  costs  to 
grasp  the  spirit  with  his  senses,  will 
people  these  processes  with  all  sorts  of 
ensouling  beings.  He,  however,  who  like 
Paracelsus  knows  how  to  regard  them 
in  connection  with  the  whole,  which 
permits  its  secret  to  become  revealed  in 
man's  inner  being,— he  accepts  them,  as 
the  senses  offer  them;  he  does  not  first 
re-interpret  them;  for  just  as  the  oc- 
currences of  Nature  lie  before  us  in  their 
sensible  reality,  so  too  do  they,  in  their 
own  way,  reveal  to  us  the  riddle  of 
existence.     That    which    through    their 


222  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

sensible  reality  they  have  to  unveil 
from  within  the  soul  of  man,  stands,  for 
him  who  strives  after  the  light  of  higher 
knowledge,  far  higher  than  all  super- 
natural wonders  that  man  can  invent 
or  get  revealed  to  him  about  their 
suppositious  ''spirit."  There  is  ^no 
''Spirit  of  Nature,"  capable  of  uttering 
loftier  truths  than  the  mighty  works  of 
Nature  herself,  when  our  soul  links  itself 
in  friendship  with  that  Nature  and  listens 
to  the  revelations  of  her  secrets  in  inti- 
mate and  tender  intercourse.  Such 
friendship  with  Nature  was  what  Para- 
celsus sought. 


VALENTINE  WEIGEL  AND  JACOB 

BOEHME 

In  the  view  of  Paracelsus,  what  mat- 
tered most  was  to  acquire  ideas  about 
Nature  which  should  breathe  the  spirit 
of  the  higher  insight  that  he  represented. 
A  thinker  related  to  him,  who  applied 
the  same  mode  of  conceiving  things  to 
his  own  nature  especially,  is  valentine 
WEIGEL  ( 1 533-1 588).  He  grew  up  out 
of  Protestant  theology  in  a  like  sense  to 
that  in  which  Eckhart,  Tauler,  and  Suso 
grew  up  out  of  Roman  Catholic  theology. 
He  has  predecessors  in  Sebastian  Frank 
and  Caspar  Schwenckfeldt.  These  two, 
as  contrasted  with  the  orthodox  Church- 
men   clinging     to     external     profession, 

223 


224  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

pointed  downwards  to  the  deepening  of 
the  inner  Hfe.  For  them  it  is  not  that 
Jesus  whom  the  Gospels  preach  who  is 
of  value,  but  the  Christ  who  can  be  born 
in  every  man  as  his  deeper  nature,  and 
become  for  him  the  Saviour  from  the 
lower  life  and  the  guide  to  ideal  uplifting. 

Weigel  performed  silently  and  humbly 
the  duties  of  his  office  as  clergyman  in 
Zschopau.  It  was  only  from  the  writings 
he  left  behind,  printed  first  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  that  the  world  learned 
anything  of  the  significant  ideas  which 
had  come  to  him  about  the  nature  of 
man.^ 

Weigel  feels  himself  driven  to  gain  a 
clear  understanding  of  his  relation  to  the 

*  The  following,  from  among  his  writings,  may  be 
named:  Der  gulde?ie  Griff,  das  ist  alle  Ding  oJme  Irr thumb 
zu  erkennen,  vielen  Ilochgelehrten  unbekandt,  and  dock  alien 
Menschen  nothwendig  zu  wis  sen;  Erkenne  dich  selbst;  Vom 
Ort  der  Welt. 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  225 

teaching  of  the  Church;  and  that  leads 
him  on  further  to  investigate  the  basic 
foundations  of  all  knowledge.  Whether 
man  can  know  anything  through  a  con- 
fession of  faith,  is  a  question  as  to  which 
he  can  only  give  himself  an  account  when 
he  knows  how  man  knows.  Weigel  starts 
from  the  lowest  kind  of  knowing.  He 
asks  himself:  How  do  I  know  a  sensible 
object,  when  it  presents  itself  before  me? 
Thence  he  hopes  to  be  able  to  mount  up- 
wards to  a  point  of  view  whence  he  can 
give  himself  an  account  of  the  highest 
knowledge. 

In  cognition  through  the  senses,  the 
instrument  (the  sense-organ)  and  the 
object,  the  "counterpart"  {Gegenwurf) 
stand  opposed.  ''Since  in  natural  per- 
ception there  must  be  two  things,  as  the 
object  or  'counterpart,'  which  is  to  be 
known  and  seen  by  the  eye;  and  the  eye, 


226  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

or  the  perceiver,  which  sees  or  knows  the 
object,  so  do  thou  hold  over  against  each 
other:  whether  the  knowledge  comes 
forth  from  the  object  to  the  eye;  or 
whether  the  judgment,  or  the  cognition, 
flows  out  from  the  eye  into  the  object/'' 
Weigel  now  says  to  himself:  If  the 
cognition  (or  knowledge)  flowed  from 
the  "counterpart"  (or  thing)  into  the 
eye,  then  of  necessity  from  one  and  the 
same  thing  a  similar  and  perfect  cogni- 
tion must  come  to  all  eyes.  But  that 
is  not  the  case,  for  each  man  sees  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  his  own  eyes.  Only 
the  eyes,  not  the  ''counterpart*'  (or 
object)  can  be  in  fault,  in  that  various 
and  different  conceptions  are  possible  of 
one  and  the  same  thing.  To  clear  up 
the  matter,  Weigel  compares  seeing  with 
reading.     If  the  book  were  not  there,  I 

^  Der  giildene  Griff,  p.  26  et  seq. 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  22^ 

naturally  could  not  read  it;  but  it  might 
still  be  there,  and  yet  I  could  read  nothing 
in  it,  if  I  did  not  understand  the  art  of 
reading.  The  book  therefore  must  be 
there;  but,  from  itself  it  can  give  me  not 
the  smallest  thing;  I  must  draw  forth 
everything  I  read  from  within  myself. 
That  is  also  the  nature  of  sensible  per- 
ception. Colour  is  there  as  the  ' '  counter- 
part," but  it  can  give  the  eye  nothing 
from  out  of  itself.  The  eye  must  recog- 
nise, from  out  of  itself,  what  colour  is. 
As  little  as  the  content  of  the  book  is  in 
the  reader,  just  so  little  is  colour  in  the 
eye.  If  the  content  of  the  book  were  in 
the  reader,  he  would  not  need  to  read  it. 
Yet  in  reading,  this  content  does  not 
flow  out  from  the  book,  but  from  the 
reader.  So  is  it  also  with  the  sensible 
object.  What  the  sensible  thing  before 
him  is;  that  does  not  flow  from  outside 


228  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

into  the  man,  but  from  within  out- 
wards. 

Starting  from  these  thoughts,  one 
might  say:  If  all  knowledge  flows  out 
from  man  into  the  object,  then  one  does 
not  know  what  is  in  the  object,  but  only 
what  is  in  man.  The  detailed  working 
out  of  this  line  of  thought,  brought  about 
the  view  of  Immanuel  Kant  (1724-1804).^ 

Weigel  says  to  himself:  Even  if  the 
knowledge  flows  out  from  man,  it  is  still 
only  the  being  of  the  "counterpart"  (or 
object)  which  comes  to  light  in  this  in- 
direct way  through  man.  As  I  learn  the 
content  of  the  book  by  reading  it,  and 
not  by  my  own  content,  so  also  I 
learn  the  colour  of  the    "counterpart" 

^The  error  in  this  line  of  thought  will  be  found  ex- 
plained in  my  book,  The  Philosophy  of  Freedom,  Berlin, 
1894.  Here  I  must  limit  myself  to  mentioning  that  Val- 
entine Weigel,  with  his  simple,  robust  way  of  conceiving 
things,  stands  far  higher  than  Kant. 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  229 

through  the  eye,  not  any  colour  to  be 
found  in  the  eye,  or  in  myself.  (Thus 
Weigel  arrives  by  a  road  of  his  own  at  a 
result  that  we  have  already  encountered 
in  Nicholas  of  Cusa.  Cp.  pages  1 51-160). 
In  this  way  Weigel  attained  to  clearness 
as  to  the  nature  of  sense-perception.  He 
arrived  at  the  conviction  that  everything 
which  external  things  have  to  tell  us  can 
only  flow  forth  from  our  own  inner  nature 
itself.  Man  cannot  remain  passive  when 
he  tries  to  know  sensible  objects  and 
seeks  merely  to  allow  them  to  act  upon 
him;  but  he  must  assume  an  active  atti- 
tude, and  bring  forth  the  knowledge  from 
within  himself.  The  counterpart  (or 
object)  merely  awakens  the  knowledge 
in  the  spirit.  Man  rises  to  higher  know- 
ledge when  his  spirit  becomes  its  own 
''counterpart.'*  One  can  see  from 
sensible  cognition  that  no  cognition  can 


230  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

flow  into  man  from  outside.  Therefore 
there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  an  external 
revelation,  but  only  an  inner  awakening. 
As  now  the  external  counterpart  waits 
till  there  comes  into  its  presence  man,  in 
whom  it  can  express  its  being,  so  too  must 
man  wait,  when  he  seeks  to  be  his  own 
''counterpart  **  (or  object)  until  the  know- 
ledge of  his  own  being  shall  be  awakened 
in  him.  If,  in  cognition  through  the 
senses,  man  must  assimie  an  active  atti- 
tude in  order  that  he  may  bring  to  meet 
the  "counterpart**  its  own  being,  so  in 
the  higher  knowing,  man  must  hold  him- 
self passive,  because  he  is  himself  now 
the  ''counterpart.'*  He  must  admit  its 
being  into  himself.  Therefore  the  cog- 
nition of  the  spirit  appears  to  him  as 
enlightenment  from  above.  In  contrast 
to  cognition  through  the  senses,  Weigel 
therefore  terms  the  higher  cognition  the 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  231 

''Light  of  Mercy/'  This  "Light  of 
Mercy"  is,  in  reaHty,  nothing  other  than 
the  self-knowledge  of  the  spirit  in  man, 
or  the  re-birth  of  knowledge  on  the  higher 
level  of  beholding. 

Now  just  as  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  in  fol- 
lowing up  his  road  from  knowing  to 
beholding,  does  not  really  bring  about 
the  re-birth  of  the  knowledge  he  has 
gained,  on  the  higher  level,  but  only  the 
faith  of  the  Church  in  which  he  was 
brought  up  appears  deceptively  before 
him  as  such  a  re-birth,  so  is  it  also  the  case 
with  Weigel.  He  guides  himself  to  the 
right  road,  but  loses  it  again  in  the  very 
moment  in  which  he  steps  upon  it.  He 
who  will  travel  the  road  that  Weigel 
points  out,  can  regard  the  latter  as 
his  guide  only  as  far  as  the  starting- 
point. 

*        *        * 


232  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

What  rings  out  to  meet  us  from  the 
works  of  the  Master-Shoemaker  of  Gor- 
Htz,  Jacob  Boehme  (i 575-1624),  sounds 
hke  the  joyous  outburst  of  Nature  ad- 
miring her  own  being  upon  the  summit 
of  her  evolution.  A  man  appears  before 
us  whose  words  have  wings,  woven  out 
of  the  inspiring  feeHng  of  having  seen 
knowledge  shining  within  him  as  Higher 
Wisdom.  Jacob  Boehme  describes  his 
own  state  as  Piety  which  strives  only 
to  be  Wisdom,  and  as  a  Wisdom  that 
seeks  to  live  only  in  Piety:  "As  I  was 
wrestling  and  fighting  in  God^s  behalf,  be- 
hold a  wondrous  light  shone  into  my  soul, 
such  as  was  quite  foreign  to  savage  nature ; 
therein  I  first  knew  what  God  and  man 
were,  and  what  God  had  to  do  with  men." 

Jacob  Boehme  no  longer  feels  himself 
as  a  separated  being  expressing  its  in- 
sights; he  feels  himself  as  an  organ  of 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  22,2> 

the  great  All-Spirit,  speaking  in  him. 
The  limits  of  his  personality  do  not  appear 
to  him  as  the  limits  of  the  Spirit  that 
speaks  from  within  him.  This  Spirit  is 
for  him  present  everywhere.  He  knows 
that  "the  Sophist  will  blame  him"  when 
he  speaks  of  the  beginning  of  the  world 
and  its  creation:  *'the  while  I  was  not 
thereby  and  did  not  myself  see  it.  To 
him  be  it  said  that  in  the  essence  of  my 
soul  and  body,  when  I  was  not  yet  the 
'I,'  but  when  I  was  still  Adam's  essence, 
I  was  there  present  and  myself  squandered 
away  my  glory  in  Adam.'* 

Only  in  external  similes  is  Boehme 
able  to  indicate  how  the  light  broke  forth 
in  his  inner  being.  When  once  as  a  boy 
he  finds  himself  on  the  top  of  a  moun- 
tain, he  sees  above  him  a  place  where 
large  red  stones  seem  to  shut  up  the 
mountain;  the  entrance  is  open  and  in 


234    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

its  depth  he  sees  a  vessel  full  of  gold.  A 
shudder  runs  through  him ;  and  he  goes 
on  his  way  without  touching  the  treasure. 
Later  on  he  is  apprenticed  to  a  shoemaker 
in  Gorlitz.  A  stranger  steps  into  the 
shop  and  demands  a  pair  of  shoes. 
Boehme  is  not  allowed  to  sell  them  in  the 
absence  of  his  master.  The  stranger 
departs,  but  after  a  while  calls  the  ap- 
prentice out  of  the  shop  and  says  to  him : 
"Jacob,  thou  art  little,  but  thou  wilt 
some  day  become  quite  another  man, 
over  whom  the  world  will  break  out  into 
wonder."  In  riper  years,  Jacob  Boehme 
sees  the  reflection  of  the  bright  sun  in  a 
tin  vessel:  the  view  that  thus  presents 
itself  to  him  seems  to  him  to  unveil  a 
profound  secret.  Even  after  the  impres- 
sion of  this  appearance,  he  believes  him- 
self to  be  in  possession  of  the  key  to  the 
riddles  of  Nature. 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  235 

He  lives  as  a  spiritual  anchorite,  hum- 
bly earning  his  living  by  his  trade,  and 
between  whiles,  as  though  for  his  own 
recollection,  he  notes  down  the  harmonies 
which  resound  in  his  inner  being  when  he 
feels  the  Spirit  in  himself.  The  z  ealotry 
of  priestly  fervour  makes  life  hard  for 
the  man;  he,  who  desires  naught  but  to 
read  the  Scripture  which  the  light  of 
his  inner  nature  illtmiinates  for  him,  is 
persecuted  and  tortured  by  those  to 
whom  only  the  external  writ,  the  rigid, 
dogmatic  confession  of  faith,  is  accessible. 

One  world -riddle  remains  as  a  disquiet- 
ing presence  in  Jacob  Boehme's  soul, 
driving  him  on  to  knowledge.  He  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  in  his  spirit  enfolded 
in  a  divine  harmony;  but  when  he  looks 
around  him,  he  sees  discord  everywhere 
in  the  divine  workings.  To  man  belongs 
the  light  of  Wisdom ;  and  yet  he  is  exposed 


236  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

to  error;  in  him  lives  the  impulse  to  the 
good,  and  yet  the  discord  of  evil  sounds 
throughout  the  whole  of  human  develop- 
ment. Nature  is  governed  by  its  own 
great  laws;  yet  its  harmony  is  disturbed 
by  happenings  of  no  purport,  and  the 
warfare  of  the  elements.  How  is  this 
discord  in  the  harmonious  world -whole  to 
be  understood?  This  question  tortures 
Jacob  Boehme.  It  strides  into  the  centre 
of  the  world  of  his  thought.  He  strives 
to  gain  a  view  of  the  world  as  a  whole, 
which  shall  include  the  discordant.  For 
how  can  a  conception  which  leaves  the 
actual  present  discord  unexplained  ex- 
plain the  world?  The  discord  must  be 
explained  out  of  the  harmony,  the  evil 
out  of  the  good  itself.  Let  us  restrict 
ourselves,  in  speaking  of  these  things,  to 
the  good  and  the  evil,  wherein  the  lack 
of  harmony  in  the  narrower  sense  finds 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  237 

its  expression.  For,  fundamentally,  Ja- 
cob Boehme  also  restricts  himself  to 
this.  He  can  do  so,  for  Nature  and  man 
appear  to  him  as  a  single  entity.  He  sees 
in  both  similar  laws  and  processes.  The 
purposeless  seems  to  him  an  evil  some- 
thing in  Nature,  just  as  evil  seems  to 
him  something  purposeless  in  man.  Simi- 
lar fundamental  forces  rule  both  here 
and  there.  To  one  who  has  known  the 
origin  of  evil  in  man,  the  source  of  evil  in 
Nature  also  lies  open  and  clear. 

Now,  how  can  the  evil  as  well  as  the 
good  flow  forth  from  the  very  same  Root- 
Being?  Speaking  in  Jacob  Boehme 's 
sense,  one  would  give  the  following  an- 
swer. The  Root -Being  does  not  live  out 
its  existence  in  itself.  The  multiplicity 
of  the  world  shares  in  this  existence.  As 
the  human  body  lives  its  life,  not  as  a 
single  member,  but  as  a  multiplicity  of 


238  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

members,  so  also  the  Root-Being.  And 
as  human  life  is  poured  out  into  this 
multiplicity  of  members,  so  too  the  Root- 
Being  is  poured  out  into  the  manifoldness 
of  the  things  of  this  world.  As  true  as 
it  is  that  the  entire  man  has  only  one 
life,  so  true  is  it  that  every  member  has 
its  own  life.  And  as  little  as  it  contra- 
dicts the  whole  harmonious  life  of  a  man, 
that  his  hand  should  turn  itself  against 
his  own  body  and  wound  it,  so  little  is 
it  impossible  that  the  things  of  the  world, 
which  live  the  life  of  the  Root-Being  in 
their  own  way,  should  turn  themselves 
against  each  other.  Thus  the  Root- 
Being,  in  dividing  itself  among  different 
lives,  confers  upon  each  such  life  the 
capacity  to  turn  itself  against  the  whole. 
It  is  not  from  the  good  that  evil  streams 
forth,  but  from  the  way  in  which  the  good 
lives.     As  the  light  is  only  able  to  shine 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  239 

when  it  pierces  the  darkness,  so  the  good 
can  bring  itself  to  life  only  when  it  per- 
meates its  opposite.     From  out  of  the 
''fathomless    abyss''   of    darkness  there 
streams  forth  the  light ;  from  the  ' '  ground- 
lessness"   of    the    indifferent    there    is 
brought  to  birth  the  Good.     And  as  in 
the  shadow  only  the  brightening  demands 
a  pointing  to  the  Hght;  but  the  darkness, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  is  felt  as  that  which 
weakens  the  light;  so  too  in  the  world, 
it  is  only  the  law-abiding  character  that 
is  sought  for  in  all  things;  and  the  evil, 
the  purposeless,  is  accepted  as  a  matter 
of  course,  intelligible  in  itself.     Thus,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  for  Jacob  Boehme 
the  Root-Being  is  the  All,  still  nothing 
in  the  world  can  be  understood,  unless 
one  has  an  eye  both  to  the  Root-Being 
and  its  opposite  at   once.     ''The  good 
has  swallowed  up  into  itself  the  evil  or 


240  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  hideous.  .  .  .  Every  being  has  in 
itself  good  and  evil,  and  in  its  unfold- 
ment,  as  it  passes  over  into  division,  it 
becomes  a  contradiction  of  qualities,  as 
one  seeks  to  overcome  the  other.'* 

Hence  it  is  altogether  in  accordance 
with  Jacob  Boehme's  view  to  see  in  every- 
thing, and  in  every  process  of  the  world, 
both  good  and  evil ;  but  it  is  not  in  accord 
with  his  meaning,  without  more  ado  to 
seek  the  Root-Being  in  the  mingling  of 
good  and  evil.  The  Root-Being  must 
swallow  up  the  evil ;  but  the  evil  is  not  a 
part  of  the  Root-Being.  Jacob  Boehme 
seeks  the  Root-Being  of  the  world;  but 
the  world  itself  has  sprung  forth  from  the 
''fathomless  abyss**  through  the  Root- 
Being.  ''The  external  world  is  not  God, 
and  eternally  will  not  be  called  God,  but 
only  a  being  wherein  God  manifests 
Himself.  .  .  .     When  one  says:  God  is 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  241 

all,  God  is  heaven  and  earth,  and  also 
the  outer  world,  so  is  that  true:  for  from 
him  and  in  him  all  stands  originally 
rooted.  But  what  am  I  to  do  with  such 
a  saying,  which  is  no  religion?** 

With  such  a  view  in  the  background, 
Jacob  Boehme's  conceptions  as  to  the 
being  of  the  whole  world  built  themselves 
up  in  his  mind,  so  that  he  makes  the 
orderly  world  emerge  in  a  series  of  steps 
from  the  ''fathomless  abyss/'  This 
world  builds  itself  up  in  seven  natural 
forms.  In  dark  astringency  the  Root- 
Being  receives  form,  dumbly  shut  up 
within  itself  and  motionless.  This  as- 
tringency Boehme  grasps  under  the 
symbol  of  Salt.  In  employing  such 
designations  he  leans  upon  Paracelsus, 
who  had  borrowed  from  chemical  pro- 
cesses his  names  for  the  processes  of 
Nature.     By  swallowing  up  its  opposite, 


16 


242    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  first  nature-form  passes  over  into  the 
form  of  the  second;  the  astringent,  the 
motionless,  takes  on  movement;  Power 
and  Life  enter  into  it.  Quicksilver  (Mer- 
cury) is  the  symbol  for  this  second  form. 
In  the  struggle  of  Rest  and  Motion, 
of  Death  with  Life,  the  third  form  of 
Nature  unveils  itself  (Sulphur).  This 
Life  battling  within  itself,  becomes  mani- 
fest to  itself;  it  lives  thenceforward  no 
longer  an  outer  battle  of  its  members; 
there  quivers  through  it  as  it  were  a 
unifying  glowing  flash,  itself  lighting 
up  its  own  being  (Fire).  This  fourth 
form  of  Nature  rises  to  the  fifth,  the 
living  battle  of  the  parts  resting  in 
themselves  (Water).  On  this  level,  as 
upon  the  first,  there  is  present  an  inner 
astringency  and  dumbness;  only  it  is 
not  an  absolute  rest,  a  silence  of  the  inner 
opposites,  but  an  interior  movement  of 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  243 

the  opposites.  It  is  not  the  motionless 
resting  in  itself,  but  the  moved,  that 
which  has  been  kindled  by  the  fire-flash 
of  the  fourth  stage.  Upon  the  sixth 
level,  the  Root-Being  itself  becomes  aware 
of  itself  as  such  inner  life.  Living  beings 
endowed  with  senses  represent  this  form 
of  Nature.  Jacob  Boehme  calls  it  the 
"Clang*'  or  Call,  and  in  so  doing  adopts 
the  sense-perception  of  sound  as  the 
symbol  for  sense-perception  in  general. 
The  seventh  form  of  Nature  is  the  Spirit, 
raising  itself  on  the  basis  of  its  sense- 
perceptions  (Wisdom).  He  finds  him- 
self again  as  himself,  as  the  Root-Being, 
within  the  world  that  has  grown  up  out 
of  the  "fathomless  abyss,*'  shaping  itself 
out  of  the  harmonious  and  the  discordant. 
"The  Holy  Ghost  brings  the  Glory  of 
this  Majesty  into  the  being,  wherein  the 
Godhead  stands  revealed." 


244  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

It  IS  with  such  views  that  Jacob 
Boehme  seeks  to  fathom  that  world 
which  for  him,  according  to  the  knowledge 
of  his  time,  was  reckoned  as  the  actual 
world  of  fact.  For  him  all  is  fact  which 
is  so  regarded  by  the  natural  science  of 
his  time  and  by  the  Bible.  His  way  of 
conceiving  things  is  one  thing,  his  world 
of  facts  quite  another.  One  can  imagine 
the  former  applied  to  a  totally  different 
knowledge  of  facts.  And  thus  there 
appears  before  our  eyes  a  Jacob  Boehme 
as  he  might  stand  at  the  parting  of  the 
nineteenth  and  the  twentieth  centuries. 
Such  a  one  would  not  saturate  with  his 
way  of  conceiving  things  the  six  days' 
creation  work  of  the  Bible  and  the  fight 
of  the  angels  and  the  devils,  but  Lyell's 
geological  knowledge  and  the  facts  of 
Haeckel's  The  History  of  Creation.  He 
who  can  penetrate  into  the  spirit  of  Jacob 


WEIGEL  AND  BOEHME  245 

Boehme*s  writings  must  arrive  at   this 
conviction. ' 

^  We  may  here  name  the  most  important  of  Boehme's 
writings:  Die  Morgenrothe  im  Aufgang;  Die  drei  Prinzi- 
pien  gottlichen  Lebens  oder  iiher  das  dreifache  Leben  des 
Menschen;  Das  umgewandte  Auge;  *' Signafura  rerum" 
oder  von  der  Geburt  und  Bezeichnung  aller  Wesen;  Das 
'  *  Mysterium  Magnum. ' ' 


GIORDANO   BRUNO  AND  ANGELUS 

SILESIUS 

In  the  first  decennium  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  scientific  genius  of  Nicholas 
Copernicus  (1473-1543)  thinks  out  in 
the  castle  of  Heilsberg,  in  Prussia,  an 
intellectual  structure  which  compels  the 
men  of  subsequent  epochs  to  look  up  to 
the  starry  heavens  with  other  concep- 
tions than  those  which  their  forefathers 
in  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages  had. 
To  them  the  earth  was  their  dwelling- 
place,  at  rest  in  the  centre  of  the  Universe. 
The  stars,  however,  were  for  them  beings 
of  a  perfect  nature,  whose  motion  took 
place  in  circles  because  the  circle  is  the 

representative  of  perfection. 

246 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  247 

In  that  which  the  stars  showed  to 
human  senses  they  beheld  something  of 
the  nature  of  soul,  something  spiritual. 
It  was  one  kind  of  speech  that  the  things 
and  processes  upon  earth  spoke  to  man; 
quite  another,  that  of  the  shining  stars, 
beyond  the  moon  in  the  pure  aether, 
which  seemed  like  some  spiritual  nature 
filling  space.  Nicholas  of  Cusa  had  al- 
ready formed  other  ideas. 

Through  Copernicus,  earth  became  for 
man  a  brother-being  in  face  of  the  other 
heavenly  bodies,  a  star  moving  like 
others.  All  the  difference  that  earth  has 
to  show  for  man  he  could  now  reduce 
to  this:  that  earth  is  his  dwelling-place. 
He  was  no  longer  forced  to  think  differ- 
ently about  the  events  of  this  earth  and 
those  of  the  rest  of  universal  space.  The 
world  of  his  senses  had  expanded  itself 
into  the  most  remote  spaces.     He  was 


248  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

compelled  henceforth  to  allow  that  which 
penetrated  his  eye  from  the  aether  to 
count  as  sense-world  just  as  much  as  the 
things  of  earth.  He  could  no  longer 
seek  in  the  aether  in  sensuous  fashion  for 
the  Spirit. 

Whoever,  henceforth,  strove  after 
higher  knowledge,  must  needs  come  to 
an  understanding  with  this  expanded 
world  of  the  senses.  In  earlier  centuries, 
the  brooding  mind  of  man  stood  before 
a  world  of  facts.  Now  he  was  confronted 
with  a  new  task.  No  longer  could  the 
things  of  earth  only  express  this  nature 
from  within  man's  inner  being.  This 
inner  nature  of  his  was  called  on  to  em- 
brace the  spirit  of  a  sense- world,  which 
fills  the  All  of  Space  everywhere  alike. 

The  thinker  of  Nola,  Philotheo  Gior- 
dano Bruno  (1548- 1600)  found  himself 
faced  by  such  a  problem.     The  senses 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  249 

have  conquered  the  universe  of  space; 
henceforth  the  Spirit  is  no  more  to  be 
found  in  space.  Thus  man  was  guided 
from  without  to  seek  henceforward  for 
the  Spirit  there  alone  where  from  out  of 
profound  inner  experiences  those  glori- 
ous thinkers  sought  it,  whose  ranks  our 
previous  expositions  have  led  before  us. 
These  thinkers  drew  upon  a  view  of  the 
world  to  which,  later  on,  the  advance  of 
nattiral  knowledge  forces  humanity.  The 
sun  of  those  ideas,  which  later  should  shine 
upon  a  new  view  of  Nature,  with  them 
still  stands  below  the  horizon ;  but  their 
light  already  appears  as  the  early  dawn 
at  a  time  when  men's  thoughts  of  Nature 
itself  still  lay  in  the  darkness  of  night. 

The  sixteenth  century  gave  the  heav- 
enly spaces  to  natural  science  for  the 
sense-world  to  which  it  rightfully  belongs ; 
by  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  this 


250  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

science  had  advanced  so  far  that,  even 
within  the  phenomena  of  plant,  animal, 
and  human  life,  it  could  assign  to  the 
world  of  sensible  facts  that  which  belongs 
to  it.  Neither,  then,  in  the  ^ther  above, 
nor  in  the  development  of  living  creatures, 
can  this  natural  science  henceforth  seek 
for  anything  but  sensible,  matter-of-fact 
processes.  As  the  thinker  in  the  six- 
teenth century  had  to  say:  ''The  earth 
is  a  star  among  other  stars,  subject  to  the 
same  laws  as  other  stars*';  so  must  the 
thinker  of  the  nineteenth  century  say: 
"Man,  whatever  may  be  his  origin  and 
his  future,  is  for  anthropology  only  a 
mammal,  and  further,  that  mammal 
whose  organisation,  needs  and  diseases 
are  the  most  complex,  whose  brain,  with 
its  marvellous  capacities,  has  reached  the 
highest  level  of  development."' 

^  Paul  Topinard  :    Anthropologie,  Leipzig,  1888,  p.  528. 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  251 

From  such  a  standpoint,  attained 
through  natural  science,  there  can  no 
longer  occur  any  confusion  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  sensible,  provided  man 
understands  himself  rightly.  Developed 
natural  science  makes  it  impossible  to 
seek  in  Nature  for  a  Spirit  conceived  of 
after  the  fashion  of  something  material, 
just  as  healthy  thinking  makes  it  im- 
possible to  seek  for  the  reason  of  the 
forward  movement  of  the  clock-hand, 
not  in  mechanical  laws  (the  Spirit  of 
inorganic  Nature),  but  in  a  special 
Daimon,  supposed  to  bring  about  the 
movements  of  the  hands.  Ernst  Haeckel 
was  quite  right  in  rejecting,  as  a  scientist, 
the  gross  conception  of  a  God  conceived 
of  in  material  fashion.  ''In  the  higher 
and  more  abstract  forms  of  religion,  the 
bodily  appearance  is  abandoned  and  God 
is  worshipped  as  pure  Spirit,  devoid  of 


252  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

body.  'God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that 
worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth/  But,  nevertheless,  the 
soul-activity  of  this  pure  Spirit  remains 
quite  the  same  as  that  of  the  anthropo- 
morphic personal  God.  In  reality,  even 
this  immaterial  Spirit  is  not  thought  of 
as  bodiless,  but  as  invisible,  like  a  gas. 
We  thus  arrive  at  the  paradoxical  con- 
ception of  God  as  a  gaseous  vertebrate." ' 
In  reality,  the  matter-of-fact,  sensible 
existence  of  something  spiritual  may  be 
assumed  only  when  immediate  sensible 
experience  shows  something  spiritual,  and 
only  such  a  degree  of  the  spiritual  may 
be  assumed  as  can  be  perceived  in  this 
manner.  That  first  rate  thinker,  B. 
Carneri,  ventured  to  say  (in  his  book: 
Empfindung  und  Bewusstsein,  p.  15): 
"The  dictum:  No  spirit  without  matter, 

^  Haeckel,  Riddle  of  the  Universe. 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  253 

but  also  no  matter  without  spirit, — would 
entitle  us  to  extend  the  question  to  the 
plant  also,  nay,  even  to  any  block  of 
stone  taken  at  random,  wherein  there 
seems  very  little  to  speak  in  favour  of 
these  correlative  conceptions. '  *  Spiritual 
occurrences  as  matters  of  fact  are  the 
results  of  various  doings  of  an  organism; 
the  Spirit  of  the  world  is  not  present  in 
the  world  in  a  material  sense,  but  precisely 
after  a  spiritual  fashion.  Man's  soul  is 
a  sum  of  processes  in  which  Spirit  ap- 
pears most  immediately  as  fact.  In  the 
form  of  such  a  soul,  however,  Spirit  is 
present  in  man  only.  And  it  implies 
that  one  misunderstands  Spirit,  that  one 
commits  the  worst  sin  against  Spirit,  to 
seek  for  Spirit  in  the  form  of  Soul  else- 
where than  in  man,  to  imagine  other 
beings  thus  ensouled  as  man  is.  Who- 
ever does  this,  only  shows  that  he  has 


254  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

not  experienced  Spirit  within  himself; 
he  has  only  experienced  that  outer  form 
of  appearance  of  Spirit,  the  Soul,  which 
reigns  in  him.  But  that  is  just  the  same 
as  though  one  regarded  a  circle  drawn 
with  a  pencil  as  the  real,  mathematically 
ideal  circle.  Whoever  experiences  in  him- 
self nothing  other  than  the  soul-form  of 
the  Spirit,  feels  himself  thereupon  driven 
to  assume  also  such  a  soul-form  in  non- 
human  things,  in  order  that  thereby  he 
may  not  need  to  remain  rooted  in  the 
materiality  of  the  gross  senses.  Instead 
of  thinking  the  Root-Being  of  the  world 
as  Spirit,  he  thinks  of  it  as  World-Soul, 
and  postulates  a  general  ensoulment  of 
Nature. 

Giordano  Bruno,  upon  whom  the  new 
Copernican  view  of  Nature  forced  itself, 
could  grasp  Spirit  in  the  world,  from 
which  it  had  been  expelled  in  its  old  form, 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  255 

in  no  other  manner  than  as  World-Soul. 
On  plunging  into  Bruno's  writings  (es- 
pecially his  deeply  thoughtful  book: 
De  Rerum  Principiis  et  Elementis  et 
Causis)  one  gets  the  impression  that  he 
thought  of  things  as  ensouled,  although 
in  varying  degree.  He  has  not,  in  reality, 
experienced  in  himself  the  Spirit,  there- 
fore he  conceives  Spirit  after  the  fashion 
of  the  human  soul,  wherein  alone  he  has 
encountered  it.  When  he  speaks  of 
Spirit,  he  conceives  of  it  in  the  following 
way:  ''The  universal  reason  is  the  in- 
most, most  effective  and  most  special 
capacity,  and  a  potential  part  of  the 
World-Soul ;  it  is  something  one  and  iden- 
tical, which  fills  the  All,  illuminates  the 
universe  and  instructs  Nature  how  to 
bring  forth  her  species  as  they  ought  to 
be."  In  these  sentences  Spirit,  it  is  true, 
is   not   described   as   a    "gaseous   verte- 


256  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

brate,"  but  it  is  described  as  a  being  that 
is  like  to  the  human  soul.  ''Let  now  a 
thing  be  as  small  and  tiny  as  you  please, 
it  yet  has  within  it  a  portion  of  spiritual 
substance,  which,  when  it  finds  a  sub- 
stratum adapted  thereto,  reaches  out 
to  become  a  plant,  an  animal,  and  or- 
ganises itself  to  any  body  you  choose 
that  is  ordinarily  called  ensouled.  For 
Spirit  is  to  be  found  in  all  things,  and 
there  does  not  exist  even  the  tiniest  little 
body  which  does  not  embrace  in  itself 
such  a  share  thereof  as  causes  it  to  come 
to  life." 

Because  Giordano  Bruno  had  not 
really  experienced  the  Spirit,  as  Spirit, 
in  himself,  he  could  therefore  confuse 
the  life  of  the  Spirit  with  the  external 
mechanical  processes,  wherewith  Ray- 
mond Lully  (1235-13 1 5)  wanted  to  unveil 
the  secrets  of  the  Spirit  in  his  so-called 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  257 

"Great  Art*'  (Ars  Magna).  A  recent 
philosopher,  Franz  Brentano,  describes 
this  ''Great  Art''  thus:  ''Concepts  were 
to  be  inscribed  upon  concentric,  sepa- 
rately revolving  discs,  and  then  the  most 
varied  combinations  produced  by  turning 
them  about."  Whatever  chance  brings 
up  in  the  turning  of  these  discs,  was 
shaped  into  a  judgment  about  the  highest 
truths.  And  Giordano  Brimo,  in  his  mani- 
fold wanderings  through  Europe,  made 
his  appearance  at  various  seats  of  learning 
as  a  teacher  of  this  "Great  Art."  He 
possessed  the  daring  courage  to  think  of 
the  stars  as  worlds,  perfectly  analogous 
to  our  earth;  he  widened  the  outlook  of 
scientific  thinking  beyond  the  confines 
of  earth;  he  thought  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  no  longer  as  bodily  spirits;  but 
he    still    thought    of   them   as    soul-like 

spirits.     One  must  not  be  unjust  towards 
17 


258  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  man  whom  the  Catholic  Church 
caused  to  pay  with  death  the  penalty  for 
his  advanced  way  of  thinking.  It  re- 
quired something  gigantic  to  harness  the 
whole  space  of  heaven  in  the  same  view 
of  the  universe  which  hitherto  had  been 
applied  only  to  things  upon  earth,  even 
though  Bruno  did  still  think  of  the  sen- 
sible as  soul-like. 

:{:  «  4: 

In  the  seventeenth  century  there  ap- 
peared Johann  Scheffler,  called  Angelus 
SiLESius  ( 1 624-1 677),  a  personality  in 
whom  there  once  more  shone  forth,  in 
mighty  harmony  of  soul,  what  Tauler, 
Weigel,  Jacob  Boehme,  and  others,  had 
prepared.  Gathered,  as  it  were,  into  a 
spiritual  focus  and  shining  with  enhanced 
light-giving  power,  the  ideas  of  the 
thinkers  named  make  their  appearance 
in  his  book:     " Cherubinischer  Wanders- 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  259 

mann.  Geistreiche  Sinn-  und  Schluss- 
reime/'  And  everything  that  Angelas 
Silesius  utters  appears  as  such  an  im- 
mediate, inevitable,  natural  revelation  of 
his  personality,  that  it  is  as  though  this 
man  had  been  called  by  a  special  provi- 
dence to  embody  wisdom  in  a  personal 
form.  The  simple,  matter-of-course  way 
in  which  he  lives  wisdom,  attains  its 
expression  by  being  set  forth  in  say- 
ings which,  even  in  respect  of  their  art 
and  their  form,  are  worthy  of  admiration. 
He  hovers  like  some  spiritual  being  over 
all  earthly  existence;  and  what  he  says 
is  like  the  breath  of  another  world,  freed 
beforehand  from  all  that  is  gross  and 
impure,  wherefrom  htmian  wisdom  gen- 
erally only  toilsomely  works  itself  free. 
He  only  is  truly  a  knower,  in  the  sense 
of  Angelus  Silesius,  who  brings  the  eye 
of  the  All  to  vision  in  himself;  he  alone 


260  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

sees  his  action  in  the  true  Hght  who  feels 
that  this  action  is  wrought    in   him  by 
the  hand  of  the  All:     "God  is  in  me  the 
fire,  and  I  in  him  the  light;  are  we  not 
in  most  intimate  communion  one  with 
another?"— ''I  am  as  rich  as  God;  there 
can  be  no  grain  of  dust  that  I — ^believe 
me,   man, — ^have  not   in   common   with 
Him."- — ''God  loves  me  above  Himself; 
if  I  love  Him  above  myself :  I  so  give  Him 
as  much  as  He  gives  me  from  Himself." — 
''The  bird  flies  in  the  air,  the  stone  rests 
on  the  earth;  in  water  lives  the  fish,  my 
spirit  in  God's  own  hand."— "Art  thou 
born  of  God,  then  bloometh  God  in  thee; 
and   His   Godhead   is  thy  sap  and  thy 
adornment."—' '  Halt !    whither    runnest 
thou?     Heaven  is  in  thee:  seekest  thou 
God  otherwhere,  thou  missest  Him  ever 
and  ever." 

For  one  who  thus  feels  himself  in  the 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  261 

All,  every  separation  ceases  between  self 
and  another  being;  he  no  longer  feels 
himself  as.  a  single  individual;  rather 
does  he  feel  all  that  there  is  of  him 
as  a  part  of  the  world,  his  own  proper 
being,  indeed,  as  that  World- Whole  itself. 
"The  world,  it  holds  thee  not;  thou  art 
thyself  the  world  that  holds  thee,  in 
thee,  with  thee,  so  strongly  captive 
bound." — ''Man  has  never  perfect  bliss 
before  that  unity  has  swallowed  up  other- 
ness."-— "Man  is  all  things;  if  aught  is 
lacking  to  him,  then  in  truth  he  knoweth 
not  his  own  riches." 

As  a  sense-being,  man  is  a  thing  among 
other  things,  and  his  sense-organs  bring 
to  him,  as  a  sensible  individuality,  sense- 
news  of  the  things  in  space  and  time  out- 
side of  him;  but  when  Spirit  speaks  in 
man,  then  there  remains  no  without  and 
no  within;  nothing  is  here  and  nothing 


262  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

is  there  that  is  spiritual;  nothing  is 
earlier  and  nothing  is  later;  space  and 
time  have  vanished  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  All-Spirit.  Only  so  long  as  man 
looks  forth  as  an  individual,  is  he  here 
and  the  thing  there;  and  only  so  long  as 
he  looks  forth  as  an  individual,  is  this 
earlier,  and  this  later.  **Man,  if  thou 
swingest  thy  spirit  over  time  and  place, 
so  each  moment  canst  thou  be  in  eter- 
nity."— ''I  am  myself  eternity  when  I 
leave  time  behind,  and  self  in  God  and 
God  in  self  together  grasp."' — "The  rose 
that  here  thine  outer  eye  doth  see,  it  so 
hath  bloomed  in  God  from  all  eternity." 
— "In  centre  set  thyself,  so  see'st  thou 
all  at  once:  what  then  and  now  occurred, 
here  and  in  heaven's  realm." — "So  long 
for  thee,  my  friend,  in  mind  lies  place 
and  time:  so  long  graspest  thou  not 
what 's    God,    nor    what     eternity. "^ — ■ 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  263 

"When  man  from  manifoldness  with- 
draws, and  inward  turns  to  God,  so  Com- 
eth he  to  unity/*  The  stmimit  has  thus 
been  climbed,  whereon  man  steps  forth 
beyond  his  individual  **!'*  and  abolishes 
every  opposition  between  the  world  and 
himself.  A  higher  life  begins  for  him. 
The  inner  experience  that  comes  over 
him  appears  to  him  as  the  death  of  the 
old  and  a  resurrection  in  a  new  life. 
''When  thou  dost  raise  thyself  above  thy- 
self and  lettest  God  overrule;  then  in  thy 
spirit  happens  ascenvsion  into  heaven.** 
■ — "The  body  in  the  spirit  must  arise,  the 
spirit,  too,  in  God:  if  thou  in  him,  my 
man,  will  live  for  ever  blessed."- — "So 
much  mine  'I*  in  me  doth  *minish  and 
decrease;  so  much  therefore  to  power 
Cometh  the  Lord's  own  'I.'** 

From  such  a  point  of  view,  man  recog- 
nises his  meaning  and  the  meaning  of  all 


264  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

things  in  the  realm  of  eternal  necessity. 
The  natural  All  appears  to  him  immedi- 
ately as  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  thought 
of  a  divine  All-Spirit,  who  could  still 
have  being  and  sub-existence  over  and 
beside  the  things  of  the  world,  vanishes 
away  as  a  superseded  conception.  This 
All-Spirit  appears  so  outpoured  into 
things,  so  becomes  one  in  being  with  the 
things,  that  it  could  no  longer  be  thought 
at  all,  if  even  one  single  member  were 
thought  away  from  its  being.  **  Naught 
is  but  I  and  thou;  and  if  we  twain  were 
not ;  then  is  God  no  more  God,  and  heaven 
falleth  in." — Man  feels  himself  as  a 
necessary  link  in  the  world-chain.  His 
doing  has  no  longer  aught  of  arbitrariness 
or  of  individuality  in  it.  What  he  does 
is  necessary  in  the  whole,  in  the  world- 
chain,  which  would  fall  to  pieces  if  this 
his  doing  were  to  fall  out  from  it.     "God 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  265 

may  not  make  without  me  a  single  little 
worm:  if  I  with  him  uphold  it  not, 
straightway  must  it  burst  asunder. '*^ — 
*'I  know  that  without  me  God  can  no 
moment  live:  if  I  come  to  naught,  he 
needs  must  give  up  the  ghost." — Upon 
this  height,  man  for  the  first  time  sees 
things  in  their  real  being.  He  no  longer 
needs  to  ascribe  from  outside  to  the 
smallest  thing,  to  the  grossly  sensible,  a 
spiritual  entity.  For  just  as  this  mi- 
nutest thing  is,  in  all  its  smallness  and 
gross  sensibility,  it  is  a  link  in  the  Whole. 
''No  grain  of  dust  is  so  vile,  no  mote  can 
be  so  small:  the  wise  man  seeth  God 
most  gloriously  therein."- — "In  a  mus- 
tard seed,  if  thou  wilt  imderstand  it, 
is  the  image  of  all  things  above  and 
beneath." 

Man  feels  himself  free  upon  this  height. 
For  constraint  is  there  only  where  a  thing 


<< 


II 


266  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

can  constrain  from  without.  But  when 
all  that  is  without  has  flowed  into  the 
within,  when  the  opposition  between 
I  and  world,'*  "Without  and  Within,'* 
Nature  and  Spirit,"  has  disappeared, 
man  then  feels  all  that  impels  him  as  his 
own  impulse.  "Shut  me,  as  strongly  as 
thou  wilt,  in  a  thousand  irons:  I  still 
will  be  quite  free  and  unfettered.'' — 
"So  far  as  my  will  is  dead,  so  far  must 
God  do  what  I  will ;  I  myself  prescribe  to 
him  the  pattern  and  the  goal." — At  this 
point  cease  all  moral  obligations,  coming 
from  without:  man  becomes  to  himself 
measure  and  goal.  He  is  subject  to  no 
law;  for  the  law,  too,  has  become  his 
being.  "For  the  wicked  is  the  law;  were 
there  no  command  written,  still  would 
the  pious  love  God  and  their  neighbour." 
Thus,  on  the  higher  level  of  knowledge, 
the  innocence  of  Nature  is  given  back  to 


BRUNO  AND  SILESIUS  267 

man.  He  fulfils  the  tasks  that  are  set 
him  in  the  feeling  of  an  external  necessity. 
He  says  to  himself:  Through  this  iron 
necessity  it  is  given  into  thy  hand  to 
withdraw  from  this  very  iron  necessity 
the  link  which  has  been  allotted  to  thee. 
''Ye  men,  learn  but  from  the  meadow 
flower:  how  ye  shall  please  God  and  be 
beautiful  as  well." — ''The  rose  exists 
without  why  and  because,  she  blooms 
because  she  blooms;  she  takes  no  heed 
of  herself,  asks  not  if  men  see  her."  The 
man  who  has  arisen  upon  the  higher  level 
feels  in  himself  the  eternal,  necessary 
pressure  of  the  All,  as  does  the  meadow 
flower;  he  acts,  as  the  meadow  flower 
blooms.  The  feeling  of  his  moral  respon- 
sibility grows  in  all  his  doing  into  the 
immeasurable.  For  that  which  he  does 
not  do  is  withdrawn  from  the  All,  is  a 
slaying  of  that  All,  so  far  as  the  possi- 


268  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

bility  of  such  a  slaying  lies  with  him. 
^'What  is  it,  not  to  sin?  Thou  need'st 
not  question  long:  go,  the  dumb  flowers 
will  tell  it  thee." — "All  must  be  slain. 
If  thou  slayest  not  thyself  for  God,  then 
at  last  eternal  death  shall  slay  thee  for 
the  enemy." 


AFTERWORD 

Nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries  have 
passed  since  Angelas  Silesius  gathered  up 
the  profound  wisdom  of  his  predecessors 
in  his  Cheruhinean  Wanderer.  These  cen- 
turies have  brought  rich  insights  into 
Nature.  Goethe  opened  a  vast  per- 
spective to  natural  science.  He  sought 
to  follow  up  the  eternal,  unchangeable 
laws  of  Nature's  working,  to  that  summit 
where,  with  like  necessity,  they  cause 
man  to  come  into  being,  just  as  on  a 
lower  level  they  bring  forth  the  stone.  ^ 
Lamarck,  Darwin,  Haeckel,  and  others, 
have  laboured  further  in  the  direction 
of  this  way  of  conceiving  things.     The 

'Cp.  my  book:  Goethe's  Weltanschauung^  Weimar,  1897. 

269 


270  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

*' question  of  all  questions,"  that  in 
regard  to  the  natural  origin  of  man, 
found  its  answer  in  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  other  related  problems 
in  the  realm  of  natural  events  have 
also  found  their  solutions.  To-day  men 
comprehend  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
step  outside  of  the  realm  of  the  actual 
and  the  sensible  in  order  to  understand 
the  serial  succession  of  beings,  right  up 
to  man,  in  its  development  in  a  purely 
natural  manner. 

And,  further,  J.  G.  Fichte's  penetra- 
tion has  thrown  light  into  the  being  of 
the  human  ego,  and  shown  the  soul  of 
man  where  to  seek  itself  and  what  it  is.' 
Hegel  has  extended  the  realm  of  thought 
over  all  the  provinces  of  being,  and  striven 
to  grasp  in  thought  the  entire  sensible 

*  Cp.  ante,  and  the  section  upon  Fichte  in  my  book: 
Welt-  und  Lebens-anschauungen  im  neunzehnten  Jahrhundert, 
vol.  i.,  Berlin,  S.  Cronbach. 


AFTERWORD  271 

existence  of  Nature,  as  also  the  loftiest 
creations  of  the  human  spirit.' 

How,  then,  do  those  men  of  genius 
whose  thoughts  have  been  traced  in  the 
preceding  pages,  appear  in  the  light  of  a 
world-conception  which  takes  into  ac- 
count the  scientific  achievements  of  the 
centuries  that  followed  their  epoch? 
They  still  believed  in  a  ''supernatural" 
story  of  creation.  How  do  their  thoughts 
appear  when  confronted  with  a  "natural  '* 
history  of  creation,  which  the  science  of 
the  nineteenth  century  has  built  up? 

This  natural  science  has  given  to 
Nature  naught  that  did  not  belong  to 
her;  it  has  only  taken  from  her  what  did 
not  belong  to  her.  It  has  banished  from 
Nature  all  that  is  not  to  be  sought  in  her, 
but  is  to  be  found  only  in  man's  inner 


^  Cp.  my  presentation  of  Hegel  in  Welt-  und  Lebens- 
anschauungen  im  neunzehnten  Jahrhundert,  vol.  i. 


2']2    MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

being.  It  sees  no  longer  any  being  in 
Nature  that  is  like  unto  the  human  soul, 
and  that  creates  after  the  manner  of  man. 
It  no  longer  makes  the  organic  forms  to 
be  created  by  a  man-like  God;  it  follows 
up  their  development  in  the  sense-world 
according  to  purely  natural  laws.  Meis- 
ter  Eckhart,  as  well  as  Tauler,  and  also 
Jacob  Boehme  with  Angelus  Silesius, 
would  needs  feel  the  deepest  satisfaction 
in  contemplating  this  natural  science. 
The  spirit  in  which  they  desired  to  behold 
the  world  has  passed  over  in  the  fullest 
sense  to  this  view  of  Nature,  when  it  is 
rightly  understood.  What  they  were 
still  unable  to  do,  viz,\  to  bring  the  facts 
of  Nature  themselves  into  the  light  which 
had  risen  for  them,  that,  undoubtedly, 
would  have  been  their  longing,  if  this 
same  natural  science  had  been  laid  be- 
fore them.     They  could  not  do  it;  for 


AFTERWORD  273 

no  geology,  no  **  natural  history  of  crea- 
tion'* told  them  about  the  processes  in 
Nature.  The  Bible  alone  told  them  in 
its  own  way  about  such  processes.  There- 
fore they  sought,  so  far  as  they  could,  for 
the  spiritual  where  alone  it  is  to  be 
found:  in  the  inner  nature  of  man. 

At  the  present  time,  they  would  have 
quite  other  aids  at  hand  than  in  their  own 
time,  to  show  that  an  actually  existing 
Spirit  is  to  be  found  only  in  man.  They 
would  to-day  agree  unreservedly  with 
those  who  seek  Spirit  as  a  fact  not  in 
the  root  of  Nature,  but  in  her  fruit. 
They  would  admit  that  Spirit  as  per- 
ceivable is  a  result  of  evolution,  and 
that  upon  lower  levels  of  evolution  such 
Spirit  must  not  be  sought  for.  They 
would  understand  that  no  "creative 
thought"  ruled  in  the  forthcoming  of  the 

Spirit   in   the  organism,  any  more  than 
18 


274  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

such  a  *' creative  thought"  caused  the 
ape  to  evolve  from  the  marsupials. 

Our  present  age  cannot  speak  about 
the  facts  of  Nature  as  Jacob  Boehme 
spoke  of  them.  But  there  exists  a  point 
of  view,  even  in  this  present  day,  which 
brings  Jacob  Boehme' s  way  of  regarding 
things  near  to  a  view  of  the  world  that 
takes  account  of  modern  natural  science. 
There  is  no  need  to  lose  the  Spirit,  when 
one  finds  in  Nature  only  the  natural. 
Many  do,  indeed,  believe  to-day  that 
one  must  needs  lose  oneself  in  a  shallow 
and  prosaic  materialism,  if  one  simply 
accepts  the  ''facts''  which  natural  sci- 
ence has  discovered.  I  myself  stand 
fully  upon  the  ground  of  this  same  nat- 
ural science.  I  have,  through  and 
through,  the  feeling  that,  in  a  view  of 
Nature  such  as  Ernst  Haeckel's,  only  he 
can  lose  himself  amid  shallows  who  him- 


AFTERWORD  275 

self  approaches  it  with  a  shallow  thought- 
world.  I  feel  something  higher,  more 
glorious,  when  I  let  the .  revelations  of 
the  ''natural  history  of  creation"  work 
upon  me,  than  when  the  supernatural 
miracle  stories  of  the  confessions  of  faith 
force  themselves  upon  me.  In  no  ''holy 
book"  do  I  know  aught  that  unveils  for 
me  anything  as  lofty  as  the  "sober" 
fact,  that  every  human  germ  in  the  moth- 
er's womb  repeats  in  brief,  one  after  the 
other,  those  animal  types  which  its  animal 
ancestors  have  passed  through.  If  only  we 
fill  our  hearts  with  the  glory  of  the  facts 
that  our  senses  behold,  then  we  shall  have 
little  left  over  for  "wonders"  which  do 
not  He  in  the  course  of  Nature.  If  we 
experience  the  Spirit  in  ourselves,  then  we 
have  no  need  of  such  in  external  Nature. 
In  my  Philosophy  of  Freedom,  (Ber- 
lin,   1894)    I   have   described    my    view 


276  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

of  the  world,  which  has  no  thought  of 
driving  out  the  Spirit,  because  it  beholds 
Nature  as  Darwin  and  Haeckel  beheld 
her.  A  plant,  an  animal,  gains  nothing 
for  me  if  I  people  it  with  souls  of  which 
my  senses  give  me  no  information.  I 
do  not  seek  in  the  external  world  for 
a  ''deeper,"  ''more  soulful"  being  of 
things;  nay,  I  do  not  even  assume  it, 
because  I  believe  that  the  insight  which 
shines  forth  for  me  in  my  inner  being 
guards  me  against  it.  I  believe  that  the 
things  of  the  sense- world  are,  in  fact, 
just  as  they  present  themselves  to  us, 
because  I  see  that  a  right  self-knowledge 
leads  us  to  this :  that  in  Nature  we  should 
seek  nothing  but  natural  processes.  I 
seek  no  Spirit  of  God  in  Nature,  because 
I  believe  that  I  perceive  the  nature  of 
the  human  spirit  in  myself.  I  calmly 
admit  my  animal  ancestry,  because  I  be- 


AFTERWORD  277 

lieve  myself  to  know  that  there,  where 
these  animal  ancestors  have  their  origin, 
no  spirit  of  like  nature  with  soul  can  work. 
I  can  only  agree  with  Ernst  Haeckel  when 
he  prefers  the  "eternal  rest  of  the  grave" 
to  an  immortality  such  as  is  taught  by 
some  religions/    For  I  find  a  dishonour- 
ing of  Spirit,  an  ugly  sin  against  the  Spirit, 
in  the  conception  of  a  soul  continuing  to 
exist  after  the  manner  of  a  sensible  being. 
I  hear  a  shrill  discord  when  the  scien- 
tific facts  in  Haeckel's  presentation  come 
up  against  the  "piety"  of  the  confessions 
of    some    of    our    contemporaries.     But 
for  me  there  rings  out  from  confessions 
of  faith,  which  give  a  discord  with  natural 
facts,  naught  of  the  spirit  of  the  higher 
piety    which    I    find   in    Jacob   Boehme 
and  Angelus  Silesius.     This  higher  piety 
stands  far  more   in   full  harmony   with 

'  Cp.  Haeckel's  Riddle  of  the  Universe. 


278  MYSTICS  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  working  of  the  natural.  There  lies 
no  contradiction  in  the  fact  of  saturating 
oneself  with  the  knowledge  of  the  most 
recent  natural  science,  and  at  the  same 
time  treading  the  path  which  Jacob 
Boehme  and  Angelus  Silesius  have  sought. 
He  who  enters  on  that  path  in  the  sense 
of  those  thinkers  has  no  need  to  fear 
losing  himself  in  a  shallow  materialism 
when  he  lets  the  secrets  of  Nature  be 
laid  before  him  by  a  *' natural  history  of 
creation."  Whoever  has  grasped  my 
thoughts  in  this  sense  will  understand 
with  me  in  like  manner  the  last  saying 
of  the  Cheruhinean  Wanderer,  with  which 
also  this  book  shall  close:  ''Friend,  it  is 
even  enough.  In  case  thou  more  wilt 
read,  go  forth,  and  thyself  become  the 
book,  thyself  the  reading.'* 

THE    END 


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